The Spores Of Kylon
by Clare
Summary: Fifth Doctor era. Another unsuccessful attempt to return Tegan to her own time lands the Doctor and his companions on the planet Kylon, just as the Jara Pods are spreading their spores.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Tegan had no idea where in space and time the TARDIS had materialised this time. But she was certain of one thing - this was not Heathrow Airport in the early 1980s. The scanner screen showed dense jungle foliage, foliage unlike any which existed on Earth. She saw trees as tall as any which would be found in an Earth jungle, but with leaves which were a reddish-purple and not green. Here and there, vines snaked their way round the trunks of trees and climbed towards the jungle canopy. Another jungle planet, Tegan realised, just the sort of planet she had hoped never to set foot on again after her experiences on Deva Loka.

She turned to the Doctor, currently working at the console, and fixed him with one of her penetrating stares. "Doctor," she said, folding her arms across her chest, "you've done it again, haven't you?" From the moment she found herself in the TARDIS, she had wanted nothing more than to get the hell out and return to her own time, where she had a job as an air stewardess waiting for her. But, though the Doctor had been doing his best to get her home, the TARDIS never seemed to materialise on the right co-ordinates. His most recent attempt had seen the TARDIS arrive in the right place but in 1666, nearly three centuries before she was even born.

The Doctor looked up at the sound of Tegan's voice. "Ah," he said, glancing once more at the screen, "another error. Not to worry, though; all I have to do is . . ."

"I'm sick of your so-called errors!" Tegan shot back, cutting the Doctor off in mid-sentence. Her temper had a short fuse at the best of times, but, since she got mixed up with the Doctor, she seemed to be losing it more often than usual. And it was usually the Doctor who bore the brunt of it. "I hope you realise my job's on the line here."

"Yes, I am aware of that," the Doctor said, struggling to remain calm in the face of her anger. "And I am doing my best to get you on your flight."

Tegan drew herself up to her full height. "Your best isn't good enough. I'll be drawing my pension by the time you get me home at this rate! You are . . ." Her voice was steadily rising in pitch the longer she ranted. ". . . the worst excuse for a Time Lord I've ever met!" With that, she marched over to the TARDIS's door control, pulled the lever to open the doors and stormed out of the TARDIS. Just as she had done back on 17th Century Earth . . .

* * *

The Doctor sighed; Tegan always over-reacted like this whenever his attempts to get her home failed. He was trying to get the TARDIS to materialise at the right point in space and time, but the space-time machine had never been particularly reliable. Often, no matter how carefully he (or, as had often been the case lately, Adric) calculated the co-ordinates, the TARDIS would end up somewhere other than the place it was supposed to materialise. Maybe he should have "borrowed" a later, more reliable, model when he left Gallifrey . . . But he had been in a hurry, the old Type 40 was handy and . . .

Coming back to the present, he turned to his other two companions. Nyssa was standing on the opposite side of the console, looking as serene and unruffled as ever, while Adric hovered nonchalantly in the doorway which led to the rest of the TARDIS. "Come on, you two," the Doctor said. "Let's go and try to talk sense into Tegan." With that, he pulled his hat out of his pocket and put it on his head, before striding confidently over to the doors as the two teenaged humanoids followed.

"Do you know where we are?" asked Nyssa.

"No, but the air's good and that's the main thing." Nonetheless, the Doctor thought it was best to exercise caution; he had visited many jungle planets on his travels - Kembel, Spiridon, Deva Loka, to name but three - and was only too aware of the dangers that could lurk among the trees. Indeed, Kembel and Spiridon had both housed bases from which the Daleks had planned to launch their latest attempts to conquer the Universe.

However, the Daleks were not the Doctor's main concern right now; Tegan was. As demanding as the young Earth woman was, he was not about to leave her stranded on this planet. He had promised to get her back to her own time and he meant to keep that promise. If she had only waited a minute or two longer, he would have dematerialised the TARDIS and they would have been on their way again, hopefully to Heathrow. But patience had never been one of Tegan's virtues.

The Doctor stepped out onto the surface of the unknown jungle planet, followed by Nyssa and Adric.

* * *

"Where is she?" Adric asked, gazing round at the jungle around him but seeing no sign of Tegan. He turned to the Doctor, who was just pocketing the TARDIS key. "Doctor?"

The Doctor rested a paternal hand on the boy's shoulder. "Don't worry, Adric. If I know Tegan, she won't have gone far." As he spoke, he recalled the events leading up to his most recent regeneration, in particular the way Tegan had gone after him and the Master when he had wanted all three of his companions in the TARDIS, out of harm's way. She had told him that he was her only insurance policy, her only hope of getting home. And the Doctor knew Tegan well enough by now to know that she would never venture too far from the TARDIS if she could avoid it. She must be somewhere nearby, but there was no telling which direction she had gone.

He looked from Adric to Nyssa, then back again. Had all four members of the TARDIS crew been present, he would have suggested dividing into pairs in order to cover more ground. But, with only three present, that wasn't possible. If he went with either Nyssa or Adric, or Nyssa and Adric went together, that would leave one member of their party to search alone. And he knew enough about alien planets by now to know it was rarely a good idea to be alone on one. The three of them would have to stick together. Still, this shouldn't take long, not if Tegan was anywhere nearby, but there were no guarantees of that.

The Doctor clapped his hands together. "Right, follow me. And try to stay out of trouble," he added, with a pointed stare at Adric. The young Alzarian was good at heart, but, for all his intelligence and mathematical talents, he sometimes seemed to be decidedly lacking in the common sense department. Indeed, following their adventure on Deva Loka, the Doctor had given Adric a sound scolding for attempting to pilot the TSS when he didn't know how to control it properly.

Adric scowled, but said nothing. Lately, it seemed that, no matter how hard he tried, he kept getting into trouble. Worse, the Doctor rarely seemed to have time for him lately, not since Tegan and Nyssa joined the TARDIS crew. Not that he minded having Nyssa around; the two of them had been friends from the moment they met on Nyssa's (now destroyed) home world and he had often helped her with her experiments in bio-engineering. However, his attitude to Tegan was more ambivalent and they, at best, tolerated each other; at worst, Adric had sometimes found himself on the wrong end of one of Tegan's tirades when the Doctor wasn't around for her to vent her frustrations on.

In the end, he just shrugged and trailed after the Doctor and Nyssa.

* * *

As the Doctor had predicted, Tegan hadn't gone far. They found her sitting with her back pressed against the trunk of a tree. She looked up when she heard them approach, the Doctor emerging from the trees first, then Nyssa, then Adric. "Ah, there you are," the Doctor said, walking over to her. "Ready to head back to the TARDIS?"

"OK," Tegan said, staggering to her feet. "Doctor," she added, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have stormed out like that." She knew she had broken one of the fundamental rules of TARDIS travel, that you should never venture onto the surface of an unknown planet until the Doctor had checked the console to see if it was safe to do so. But she had been so angry with him for failing to get her home yet again that she had momentarily forgotten this, as well as the fact that she had hoped never to find herself on the surface of another jungle planet.

The Doctor adjusted the stick of celery he wore on his coat. "Yes, that was very foolish," he told her, a stern look momentarily crossing his normally placid features. "Still, no harm done." He turned to Nyssa and Adric, who were standing a couple of feet away. "Come on - back to the TARDIS." Once there, he planned to take off from this planet and make another, hopefully more successful, attempt at getting Tegan home.

But, as had often happened in the past, it was not going to be as straightforward as that.

* * *

As the four friends turned in the direction they had come, they saw dozens of pairs of eyes glowing ruby red in the jungle undergrowth. Dozens of pairs of eyes watching them, waiting for the chance to strike . . . But what manner of creatures were they? And were they friend or foe?

Slowly, the creatures emerged from hiding. About six feet tall and walking on their hind legs, they were covered in black spikes; to Tegan, they looked like demonic echidnas. Their hands had just two fingers, but these ended in claws as long as small daggers, claws which looked like they could do some serious damage. As could their spikes . . . One of them fired a volley of spikes at Nyssa, who barely managed to dodge.

"Doctor, what _are_ they?" Tegan asked fearfully, her eyes wide as the creatures began to advance on the small party of time-travellers.

But the Doctor didn't - couldn't - answer; though he had encountered many strange creatures on his travels, these were something completely new to him. Instinctively, he reached into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver, only to pull his hand out again immediately. He silently cursed himself for forgetting that he no longer had a sonic screwdriver; while on 17th Century Earth, he and his companions had encountered a race of aliens called Terileptils, whose leader had zapped the screwdriver with a powerful ray, melting it and damaging it beyond repair. Perhaps he would make a replacement one day, but, in the meantime . . .

"Whatever they are," Nyssa said, her voice trembling slightly, "they don't look friendly . . ."

"And they're between us and the TARDIS!" There was an edge of hysteria in Tegan's voice. Not only did the Doctor seem to be incapable of getting her back to her own time, he appeared to have an unerring habit of landing himself and his companions in trouble.

The Doctor quickly assessed the situation. He and his companions were hopelessly outnumbered by an unknown enemy, without a weapon between them. Had he still had the sonic screwdriver, he would have tried using the device to emit a high-pitched tone in the hope of scaring the creatures off. But that was no longer an option. Their only chance was to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the creatures, then try to double back to the TARDIS later.

"Run for it!" he ordered, shepherding his companions together and, casting a quick glance in the direction of the creatures, sprinting away through the trees. Seconds later, a high-pitched screech behind him told him that the creatures were in pursuit.

* * *

They had been running for what felt like hours, the screeching of their unknown pursuers echoing in their ears. As she stumbled along, Tegan silently cursed the Doctor for landing them in yet another life-threatening situation. Though, if she was honest with herself, part of the blame lay with her; if she hadn't decided to investigate the TARDIS when she came across it on a country road, the Doctor would not have taken off with her on board and she would now be on Earth, travelling the world as a flight attendant. Instead, she was on an unknown planet with three aliens, being chased by creatures like nothing she had imagined in her worst nightmares.

Glancing back, she noticed that Adric had stopped running and stood brandishing a broken branch like a club, facing the creatures. "Adric!" she cried, realising what he was trying to do. "What are you doing?!"

"What does it look like?!" Adric shot back. "I'm going to fight these things - surely even you can see that." He swung his makeshift weapon and made to attack the nearest creature, only to be forced back by a volley of spikes. The next thing he felt was the Doctor grabbing him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides and forcing him to drop the branch.

"You young fool!" the Doctor hissed in Adric's ear. "Can't you see there are too many of them for you to fight?!" There was no denying that Adric had a great deal of courage; unfortunately, it was also coupled with a reckless streak. Add to that the fact that Adric was going through the adolescent phase of thinking he was invincible and . . . The Doctor decided to leave the thought unfinished and urged Adric forward, hoping their pursuers would eventually tire. Any lectures he might be tempted to give the boy about not taking foolish risks, about knowing when to cut your losses and run would have to wait.

Adric was seething with anger and resentment; he was only a few years younger than Tegan (the oldest of the Doctor's current group of companions) and the Doctor was treating him as though he was still an immature little boy. Every time he tried to prove himself, he only succeeded in getting himself into trouble. And that inevitably led to scoldings from the Doctor, which in turn led to heated arguments. Like young males everywhere, Adric resented taking orders from others, even when those orders were "for his own good".

* * *

Kerez sat silently on the Great Chair, listening as Marena made her report.

"Strangers on Kylon?" he asked when she had finished speaking. No outsiders had come to the planet Kylon for centuries, not since the Collapse, the time when Kylonian civilization had fallen. Now, all that remained was the Last City and a few villages dotted around; everything else had been taken over by the jungle. Since then, other races had avoided Kylon, so the news of strangers on the planet's surface made him sit up and take notice. "How many?"

"Four," Marena replied. "Two males and two females. I saw them being chased by Quiloks - they were heading for . . ." She hesitated, unable to bring herself to say what she had been about to say, and glanced down at her hands.

"Go on," Kerez urged, seeing the young woman's anxiety but needing to hear her full report, especially since it concerned the discovery of outsiders on Kylon.

Marena forced herself to pick up the thread of her report. "They were heading for the clearing, where the Jara Pods grow. I would have tried to attract their attention, but I couldn't because of the Quiloks. So I decided to come back here and report to you," she concluded.

Hearing this, Kerez looked startled. This was the season when the Jara Pods spread their spores, bursting and releasing clouds of what looked like purple dust. These spores were harmless if they fell directly on the ground, but any living being which inhaled them was in serious trouble. And, from what Marena was saying, it sounded as if these strangers were in danger of running right into the middle of them. Like all Kylonians, he was familiar with the Jara Pods and knew not to go near them when they were spreading their spores, but someone new to the planet would be unaware of the danger.

"Take a party of Scouts and find these people," he told her. "Make sure none of them are exposed to the spores."

"And, if they are . . .?"

Kerez shook his head grimly; he had seen someone who had been affected by the spores once before and had no wish to do so again.

* * *

Presently, the Doctor and his companions emerged from the jungle and into a clearing. Taking a quick glance back the way they had come, Tegan was both surprised and relieved to see that their pursuers did not appear to be following. Rather, they were hovering on the edge of the jungle, screeching but making no attempt to continue the chase. "Why aren't they following us?" she wondered out loud. She had thought - they had all thought - that this was the end, that these creatures were going to hunt them down and . . . Well, she wouldn't have to worry about getting back to Heathrow if that happened.

But no-one was listening. The Doctor, Nyssa and Adric were all gathered around something which look like a large grey pea pod, albeit one which appeared to be growing directly in the ground. And it wasn't the only one; similar pods grew all over the clearing, some singly like the one the Doctor, Nyssa and Adric were examining, others in clusters of two or more.

"What is it?" Adric asked, leaning in for a closer look. He was itching to touch the strange pod, curious to feel its texture. But the memory of how, following his misadventure with the TSS, the Doctor had rebuked him for "interfering with things he didn't understand" kept him from doing anything more than look.

The Doctor straightened up from where he had been crouching to examine the pod and turned to the boy. "I don't know," he replied. "There are, of course, several possibilities," he added briskly.

"Some sort of plant life?" supplied Nyssa. "Or a fungus?" For a moment, her mind drifted back to the Grove on Traken, a peaceful garden which had housed plants from all over the Traken Union. Unfortunately, it had also housed the thing which ultimately led to the destruction of Traken and all her people . . . She blinked away tears of hopeless homesickness, then stepped back a couple of paces.

The Doctor did not reply. He had pulled a penknife out of his pocket and was preparing to take a sample of the pod, intending to examine it as soon as he got back to the TARDIS. Fully aware that alien plants were not something to mess with, he approached cautiously, moving slowly, constantly alert for any sign that the pod might be about to try and defend itself. But, just as he reached out to take his sample, there was a muffled explosion and a cloud of purple dust shot out of the pod. This was followed by another explosion elsewhere in the clearing, then another, then another.

The Jara Pods were releasing their spores.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Fortunately for Tegan and Nyssa, neither of them had been anywhere near the pod when it burst. But something, though she wasn't sure exactly what, told Tegan that it would be a bad idea to stick around here. Already, more and more pods were bursting and ejecting their purple clouds.

Fumbling in her skirt pocket, she pulled out a handkerchief and clamped it over her mouth and nose with one hand, grabbing Nyssa's arm with the other. "Come on!" she urged the young Traken, her voice muffled slightly by the handkerchief over her face. "We've gotta get out of here!" As she spoke, she quickly glanced round at the clearing, searching for the Doctor and Adric but seeing no sign of either of them. Right now, however, she was more concerned with getting herself and Nyssa out of here; the Doctor and Adric would just have to take care of themselves.

Taking her cue from Tegan, Nyssa covered her mouth and nose with her free hand. The two friends, human and Traken, began to run, trying to get clear of the pods and their purple clouds, not daring to breathe in the strange dust. Even with their mouths and noses covered, Tegan and Nyssa found that the dust still got into their eyes, irritating them and making them water. They could hardly see where they were going, but forced themselves to continue; no matter what, they had to get clear of the clouds of purple dust.

Presently, satisfied that they were safely out of range of the dust clouds (unless the wind changed, which it didn't show any signs of doing soon) Tegan and Nyssa slowed to a halt. They paused for a moment to catch their breath, Tegan wiping her forehead with the handkerchief she had been using as a makeshift face-mask, before Nyssa spoke. "The Doctor and Adric? Where are they?"

"I don't know," Tegan told her, a terrible thought forming in her mind. "I assumed they were following us, but . . ." Her heart pounding, she ran back the way she had come, getting as close as she dared to the dust clouds. "Doctor! Adric!" she called, hoping against hope that at least one of the pair had made it through the clouds. She dreaded to think what might happen if they hadn't. The Doctor was her one hope of returning to her own time; if anything happened to him, she could wave goodbye to any chance of getting to Heathrow. As for Adric, he could be a pain in the neck at times - and there had been times when she felt like giving him a good hard slap - but she did not seriously wish anything bad would happen to the boy.

* * *

The Doctor and Adric had been nearer the pod when it first burst, shooting out its cloud of purple dust. Luckily, the Doctor was upwind of the cloud and, in addition, his people had a special ability which they could use to protect themselves from breathing in potentially dangerous substances: respiratory bypass, the ability to temporarily close off their respiratory passages until the danger was over. As his previous incarnation had once said, this ability was "useful in a tight squeeze".

Adric, however, had no such ability - and he was caught right in the path of the cloud. He may have come from a race of beings descended from highly adaptable creatures and he may have been able to recover within a few hours from injuries which Tegan or Nyssa would need at least a few days to get over. But his physiology did not include any in-built mechanisms which could protect him from inhaling a cloud of dust that had just been ejected right in his face. He fell to his knees, coughing uncontrollably, his eyes watering from the dust.

The Doctor knew he had to act fast. Still keeping his respiratory passages closed, he hurried over to Adric and hauled him to his feet. Then, he urged the boy forward, aiming to get clear of the pods and their clouds of purple dust as quickly as possible. The dust could be harmless, though the way Adric was coughing suggested that it did have some irritant qualities, but he didn't want to take chances. Experience had taught him that unknown substances such as this dust could well be dangerous.

* * *

"Doctor! Adric! Thank goodness!"

Tegan's face was filled with relief as the two male members of the TARDIS crew emerged from the trees. But it quickly turned to concern as she registered the fact that Adric was coughing rather heavily. She hurried over to the pair, with Nyssa not far behind. "What happened?" she asked, as she drew level with them.

Adric wanted to say something along the lines of: "What do you think?!" But he was coughing so hard that speech was currently impossible for him and it was left to the Doctor to reply.

"He inhaled some of that dust. Take it easy," he said to Adric, sitting him down on a fallen log and rubbing his back in a bid to ease the spasms of coughing. "Get your breath back."

"Is that serious?" asked Nyssa, moving closer to Adric. She and the young Alzarian shared a close bond, one she suspected stemmed, at least partly, from having both lost their entire families. Adric had been with her when the Entropy Field the Master had unleashed had swallowed up Traken, taking with it all her people. In one brief moment, an entire race had been all but wiped out, leaving only a young female who now had no home and no people. The Doctor, Tegan and Adric had become a kind of surrogate family, but they couldn't truly empathise with what it felt like to be in her situation. Though the Doctor would one day know loss on such a scale, that was in his future and he would get through a few more regenerations before that happened.

For now, though, he looked up at the sound of Nyssa's voice. "I don't know," he told her, wishing he could give a more definite answer. Then, he hurried on briskly. "It could, of course, be nothing serious, but . . ." He stopped himself in mid-sentence as if he had suddenly remembered that Adric was right next to him. "Come on," he said at last, noting that the boy seemed to be over his coughing fit. "Let's get back to the TARDIS."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" asked Tegan, recalling not only the strange pods with their clouds of purple dust but the spiked creatures which had chased them to that spot. Had it not been for the fact that the creatures had clearly been afraid of the pods, she would have suspected they had lured the Doctor and his companions there on purpose. This sort of thing unfailingly happened to them. She hadn't known the Doctor for very long, but it seemed that, no matter where in space and time he went, trouble was always waiting for him.

The Doctor cast a quick glance at the trees. "Not back the way we came, that's certain."

* * *

Once Adric had staggered to his feet, the four of them set off in search of the TARDIS, this time taking a detour around the jungle. As usual, the Doctor took the lead, his companions following a few feet behind. None of them wanted to stay on this planet any longer than was strictly necessary, but there was a distinct disadvantage to taking the scenic route - as Tegan soon realised.

"How much further?" she grumbled, after they had been walking for what felt like hours with still no sign of any incongruous blue boxes. On the whole, this was not turning out to be a good day for her - then again, that seemed to be the norm since she got herself mixed up with the Doctor. She thought of the things she had encountered lately - the Master, Monarch, the Mara . . . The latter made her shudder as she recalled how it had taken control of her; she still didn't know if it had been entirely vanquished or if it lay dormant in her mind.

Nyssa, drawing level with Tegan, gave her friend a straight look. "Would you rather risk that jungle?"

"No, of course not," Tegan replied. "But I'm sure we've passed that tree twice already," she added, gesturing towards a nearby tree. The thought that they might be going round in circles made her uneasy; it reminded her of Castrovalva, the virtual city that the Master had forced Adric to create as a trap for the newly regenerated Doctor. And one of the defining features of Castrovalva had been the fact that, as local space collapsed, it became virtually impossible to go in any direction without ending up right back where you started.

"You're forgetting something," Nyssa said, keeping her tone of voice neutral. "The Doctor's got an excellent sense of direction."

"If his sense of direction is as "excellent" as his ability to get me back to Heathrow, no wonder he keeps getting into trouble." Tegan rolled her eyes and vowed to herself that, if and when they got back to the TARDIS, she was going to give a certain Gallifreyan a piece of her mind. "And I don't know how you can be so calm all the time!" In the short time they had known each other, Tegan had rarely seen Nyssa as anything other than a model of serene composure; unlike the other members of the TARDIS crew, the young Traken hardly ever lost her temper with anyone.

"Just accept that he knows where he's going," was all Nyssa said in reply to Tegan's last statement.

Tegan was about to reply when she glanced back and caught sight of Adric leaning against a tree, struggling to catch his breath. Unseen by the rest of the TARDIS crew, he had started to fall behind and was now separated from them by several feet. "Wait there," she said to Nyssa, before hurrying over to the boy. Adric, she noted as she drew level with him, seemed strangely pale and was breathing rather heavily. But why? Something to do with that dust? But surely Adric, with his innate recuperative powers, should have shaken off its effects by now. If he hadn't, this could be serious; Tegan knew that much when it came to Alzarian physiology.

Slowly, she reached out and touched Adric on the shoulder.

* * *

Adric had started feeling light-headed shortly after he and the others began their trek back to the TARDIS. But he had ignored it, telling himself that it was nothing serious and his body's ability to heal itself within hours of sustaining any damage would take care of it. Of course, even Alzarians sometimes sustained injuries so severe that they couldn't recover from them, at least not without help. But Adric, with typical adolescent arrogance, chose to ignore this fact.

That, however, proved to be a mistake and he soon found that his dizziness was only getting worse. Now, as he clutched at a tree trunk for support, he felt as though the whole jungle was spinning around him in a blur of colour and sound. "Adric?" he vaguely heard Tegan's voice say as he felt her hand on his shoulder. "Are you OK?"

"I - I'll be fine in a moment," he managed to stammer. With that, he forced himself to let go of the tree, only to fall down immediately.

Tegan hauled him to his feet and looked at him seriously. No matter what Adric tried to argue to the contrary, it was clear to her that he was not fine - and nor was he going to be fine any time soon. She glanced ahead to where the Doctor and Nyssa had stopped to wait for herself and Adric to catch up, then turned back to the boy. "Here, let me help you," she said, offering him her arm.

His only response was to push her away. "I'm not a baby! I can . . . I can . . ." Before he could complete his sentence, the dizziness overwhelmed him and he began to fall to the ground.

"Adric!" Tegan instinctively rushed forward to catch Adric as he fell. As she did so, she noted just how pale he seemed and reached out to touch his forehead. The heat made her pull her hand back immediately. "Doctor!" she shouted, kneeling beside Adric and supporting his head on her lap. "Get over here!"

* * *

As soon as he heard Tegan's shout, the Doctor turned and headed in the direction it came from, with Nyssa following. Arriving, he knelt down opposite Tegan and began to examine Adric as best he could; the boy's face was pale and flushed, his skin hot to the touch. "He's burning up," the Doctor said, speaking mainly to himself. "What happened?" he asked, this time addressing Tegan directly.

Tegan told him as much as she could, which wasn't much. "Doctor," she added after a moment's pause, "it was that dust which did this, wasn't it? There's some sort of poison in it."

"Possibly," the Doctor said, casting a glance at the semi-conscious Adric. The boy suddenly seemed very young and very vulnerable, a far cry from the strong-willed youngster the Doctor had known since shortly after the TARDIS fell through the void into E-Space. "He was the only one of us to inhale any of it . . ." He paused. "You and Nyssa haven't experienced similar symptoms?"

Tegan shook her head. "He'll be all right, won't he?" she asked anxiously, her voice trembling slightly. "He's an Alzarian - he can recover quickly." She remembered how, during their visit to 17th Century Earth, Adric had sprained his ankle, but was soon up to climbing a ladder into someone's hayloft. Had it been herself or Nyssa, neither of them would have even considered trying to put any weight on the affected ankle so soon after sustaining the injury. Adric, however, was different.

But the Doctor shook his head. "Recovery isn't always possible, even for an Alzarian," he told her. Adric's people may have been capable of healing in far less time than it took most other races, but that didn't mean they were invulnerable. Then, seeing the desperate looks on the faces of Tegan and Nyssa, he hurried on. "But let's not give up just yet. We'll take him back to the TARDIS and make him as comfortable as we can. And we'll try to find out more about those pods."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" asked Tegan, silently vowing that she would not be going near those pods again if someone paid her a million Australian dollars. She felt a pang of guilt as she recalled how she had stormed out of the TARDIS, forcing the others to go after her; if only she had stayed put, they wouldn't have encountered the pods and Adric wouldn't be in this state. Her Aunt Vanessa, she recalled with a pang of sorrow, had always said she was impulsive, prone to rushing into things without stopping to consider what the consequences might be.

The Doctor looked as if he was about to reply, but, before he could do so, four humanoid figures emerged from the trees a short distance ahead of himself and his companions.

* * *

The strangers, three males and a female, all wore simple earth tones, their clothing consisting of tunics and trousers, with the addition of a knee-length overskirt in the female's case. Seeing Adric lying on the ground, she headed straight for him and knelt at his side to touch his cheek lightly. Adric moaned faintly as the young woman looked up to address the Doctor. "What's wrong with him?"

The Doctor paused for a moment before replying. "I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it has something to do with some dust he inhaled."

"Dust?" There was a sudden look of alarm on the young woman's face.

The Doctor pointed in the direction of the clearing where he and his companions had encountered the pods. "Back that way. We'd found some pods when they started bursting and . . ."

"The spores of the Jara Pods!" the woman said, cutting the Doctor off in mid-sentence. "One of the deadliest poisons on the planet Kylon!" She got up and turned to the three men with her. "Tagav, Jound, you two go on ahead. Tell Kerez we've found the strangers, but one of them has inhaled the spores. Idral and I will escort them."

"Escort us?" echoed Nyssa, as the men identified as Jound and Tagav hurried to do as they had been ordered.

"To the Last City. You can't stay in this jungle while the Jara Pods are spreading their spores. Because, if you inhale any of them, you'll end up like that." The woman nodded towards Adric, still lying on the ground where he had fallen.

The Doctor paused to consider her offer. He had planned to take Adric back to the TARDIS while he tried to find out exactly what was wrong with the boy and, hopefully, how to do something about it. But these people seemed to know a little more about the pods than he and his companions did, suggesting that they had been on this planet for some time, though he did not yet know if they were an indigenous race or were the descendents of colonists from some other planet. The humanoid form had evolved separately on many planets, including his own. But, whatever their origins, it was clear that they were familiar with these Jara Pods and their spores, which meant they might have some idea how to counteract the effect the spores had had on Adric.

"Adric," he whispered, leaning closer to the boy, "just hold on. I'm not going to let anything happen to you." A statement which would one day ring with hollow irony . . .

For now, though, the Doctor gently lifted Adric off the ground and, holding the boy in his arms, turned to face the young woman (whose name he still did not know) and the man called Idral. "Lead on."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

The young woman's name was presently revealed to be Marena and, as she explained while she and Idral led the Doctor and his companions to their destination, she was Chief Scout of the Last City.

Under normal circumstances, the Doctor would have tried to find out as much as he could about Kylon and its people, in particular how this "Last City" had gained its name. The name itself suggested that there had been some sort of apocalyptic event on Kylon, though the fact that the planet showed normal levels of radiation ruled out a nuclear holocaust of the sort which had devastated Skaro and ultimately led to the creation of the Daleks. But he was currently too concerned about Adric's condition to even think about questioning Marena and Idral.

He thought of the pods he and his companions had encountered: the Jara Pods, as Marena had called them. And it seemed that the spores these pods ejected contained a deadly poison, one so potent that even Adric's innate healing powers were not enough to neutralise its effects. Still, at least it hadn't killed the boy outright and that meant there was still a chance of saving him. These Kylonians seemed to be familiar with the Jara Pods and their spores, so they might know of some antidote, some means of reviving someone who had fallen victim to this toxin.

Looking down at Adric, still cradled in his arms, the Doctor recalled everything the two of them had been through together - their first meeting on Adric's home planet of Alzarius, discovering that the boy had stowed away on the TARDIS, bringing him into N-Space and everything that had happened since . . . Adric was not always the easiest person to get on with, prone to displays of what could only be described as pure stubbornness, but the Doctor sensed that the young Alzarian had the potential to become something more than the awkward adolescent who seemed to have tried his patience more often than any of his other companions. Already, no longer a child but not yet fully adult, Adric could handle highly complex mathematical concepts; in a few years' time, when he had grown out of the "moody teenager" phase, he could have developed his skills even further. If anything could be done for his current condition . . .

* * *

Rounding a corner, the party was met by three men. Tegan and Nyssa, who had been walking behind the Doctor, recognised two of them as Tagav and Jound, but the third was unfamiliar to them. He was an older man with long grey hair, around which he wore a thin leather band, and his clothing was essentially the same as that worn by the other three Kylonian men, with the addition of a long cloak. Something about his bearing suggested that he was some kind of authority figure and Nyssa found herself tempted to bow in his presence, as she had been taught to do in the deportment lessons she had received on Traken. But she resisted the urge, knowing it might not be appropriate in this man's culture, and waited for him to speak.

"Are these the strangers?" the man asked, addressing Marena.

"Yes, Kerez," Marena replied. "But the youngest of them is dangerously ill. The Jara Pods . . ."

"Yes, Tagav and Jound told me." The man, Kerez, then turned to the Doctor and his companions. "We must not delay - come." As he spoke, he cast a glance at Adric and thought of his son, Pergon, who had died from the effects of the spores when he was roughly Adric's age. Kerez had hoped Pergon would take over as the ruler of the Last City one day, but, like rebellious teenagers everywhere, Pergon had chosen to ignore the warnings against venturing near the Jara Pods while they were dispersing their spores. Now, another youth was in danger of suffering the same fate and . . .

"Can you do anything for him?" the Doctor asked, his words cutting through Kerez's train of thought. This was, he realised, the second time recently that the health of one of his companions had given him cause for concern. Not long after they escaped from Monarch's spacecraft, Nyssa had collapsed, though her condition had been cured with forty-eight hours' undisturbed rest in the delta wave augmenter on Deva Loka. In Adric's case, however, it looked as though things were far more serious.

Kerez paused for a moment. "I'm afraid, sir, I lack the skill. But Healer Dorika may be able to help." As he spoke, he thought of the woman who served as Healer to the Last City. Dorika was highly skilled and had brought many people back from the brink of death, though even she could do little (if anything) for someone who had been exposed to the spores of the Jara Pods.

* * *

It did not take long to reach the Last City, a walled settlement built around what appeared to be a temple or a palace, though it was hard to tell which. The place seemed to be fairly primitive; the Doctor guessed this was a Level Two civilization, early Level Three at best. But he suspected that it had once been more advanced, though there was no way of telling just how advanced it had been. It could have been Level Five, the same Level Earth had reached in Tegan's time, or it could have been as high as Level Nine or Ten. However, he had no time to think about such things now; Adric was his main concern at present.

He thought back to what he had said to Tegan shortly before Marena and the others appeared. Even Alzarians could not recover from everything; as far as he knew, no race in any universe could, not even his own people. Though the Time Lords had the ability to "cheat" death by regenerating into a new body, a process which caused their appearance and personality to change, even this was not always enough to save them. If death occurred so quickly that the regeneration process had no time to kick in, or if the circumstances under which it happened made regeneration impossible, there was nothing that could prevent the inevitable.

But he was not about to give up on Adric just yet. Throughout all the time he had been travelling in space and time, the Doctor had seen only two of his travelling companions die. First, Katarina had been sucked to her death in the vaccuum of space, followed not long after by Sara Kingdom ageing to death on Kembel. Since then, though there had been times when the Doctor feared the worst had happened to one or more of his companions, the TARDIS crew (in its various permutations) had always come through every crisis unscathed. However, as he would presently learn, that would not always be the case . . .

For now, though, he prepared to leave Adric in the care of the Kylonian Healer, hoping that she might know how to cure the effects of the deadly spores the boy had inhaled.

* * *

Healer Dorika straightened up from where she had been examining Adric, now lying on a low bed with Nyssa kneeling at his side, and shook her head. "I'm sorry," she told the Doctor and Tegan, who were standing nearby, anxiously waiting for her verdict on the boy's condition.

"There must be _something_ you can do." Tegan looked at the Kylonian woman desperately, her eyes pleading with her to take back the words she had just said. "Isn't there an antidote or something?" She glanced in Adric's direction and thought of how he always seemed to go out of his way to annoy her, usually by reminding her of the fact that he was better at maths than she was. Despite this, Tegan realised that she had come to regard Adric almost as a younger brother, an irritating brat but one she cared about deep down.

"There is," Dorika replied, sighing heavily. "But there's no chance of you getting your hands on it."

"And why not?" The Doctor gave Dorika the look which Tegan had come to learn meant he saw someone's words as a challenge, a test of his ability to succeed against seemingly impossible odds.

"Because the antidote can only be obtained from territory controlled by Gark and his Bandits - and they'll just as soon kill you as look at you." Dorika sighed again. "So the only thing I can do for your friend is make him as comfortable as possible."

But her last sentence barely registered in the Doctor's mind. He was recalling the time he and Sarah Jane had encountered the Sisterhood of Karn, an order of female humanoids who had jealously guarded a life-giving Elixir produced by the Sacred Flame they worshipped. He had no way of knowing if Gark was doing the same thing with the antidote, but he was not one to allow himself to be bullied, especially when the life of a friend was at stake. Adric needed that antidote and, Bandits or no Bandits, the Doctor meant to get it. He straightened the stick of celery on his coat, a look of resolution on his face.

"In that case," he said, looking Dorika full in the face, "I think it's time to pay Gark a visit. So, if you can tell me where his territory is . . ."

"It won't do any good," Dorika insisted. "Gark never lets anyone leave his territory alive, so even if you got what you came for . . ."

"I must at least try!" the Doctor cut in, his mask of resolution slipping for a moment, before settling back more firmly than before. "Adric is someone I regard as a son - I will not just stand by and accept that nothing can be done for him!" But, as he said those words, he had no way of knowing that there would come a time when Adric was in danger and the Doctor would be powerless to save him.

"In that case, I'll help you."

* * *

Everyone looked round to see Kerez standing in the doorway, with Marena and Jound close behind him. "I overheard what you said," Kerez said, addressing the Doctor. "And, as ruler of the Last City, I wish to offer you my help."

"And why should you do that?" the Doctor asked in guarded tones. Though part of him was grateful that at least one of the Kylonians was offering to help him in his attempts to save Adric, he had had plenty of experience of leaders and their ways. Some were benevolent, with the welfare of their people uppermost in their minds, but there were also those who were the exact opposite. Still, from what he'd seen of Kerez so far, the Doctor was fairly sure the man fell into the former category.

"Because I had a son who died from inhaling the spores," Kerez replied, a look of sorrow momentarily crossing his face. "And I cannot just stand by and allow it to happen to anyone else." As he spoke, he recalled how Dorika had fought desperately to save Pergon from the effects of the spores. But, without the antidote, it was a fight in which she had ultimately been defeated. Fortunately, since then, no-one had inhaled the spores - until now. "So," Kerez went on, "I'm going to help you. I can provide you with a rough map of Gark's territory, but, after that, it's up to you. You and the Scouts I'll send as well."

"I'm coming too." Tegan boldly stepped forward to stand at the Doctor's side; if he was venturing into Bandit territory, there was no way she was going to let him go without her. For one thing, she still needed him to get her home. And, even if she did manage to find her way back to the TARDIS in the midst of the Kylonian jungle, she was not going to risk trying to dematerialise it by herself again, not after the way her last attempt had turned out. On that occasion, she had been trying to escape from Monarch's spacecraft but had only succeeded in suspending the TARDIS in space, forcing the Doctor to rescue her.

The Doctor turned round at the sound of her voice. He knew he was about to embark on a potentially dangerous mission and instinctively wanted to make sure his companions were out of harm's way. But he also knew how determined Tegan was; if he refused to allow her to accompany him, she would almost certainly try to follow his party by herself. In some ways, she and Adric were more alike than either of them would have admitted - stubborn, argumentative, prone to disobeying orders. And he had no time to waste on arguments right now.

"Very well," he said at last. "As long as you remember . . ."

"I know - don't do anything stupid." Tegan rolled her eyes in a way that said she had heard all this before. "Do I ever?"

"It has been known." However, the Doctor chose not to remind Tegan of any specific incidents, knowing it would only rub her the wrong way. When annoyed, Tegan was capable of launching into what often felt like the rant to end all rants to those on the receiving end. "Anyway," the Doctor went on, "as they say, let's get on with it."

* * *

It was quickly agreed that Marena and Jound would be the Scouts who would travel into Gark's territory with the Doctor and Tegan. Both Kylonians seemed apprehensive at the thought of venturing into enemy territory, but they had little choice in the matter. The Doctor was determined to get the antidote his friend needed, even if it meant risking his own life in the process; at least, with people familiar with this planet to accompany him, he might have a chance. They did not know that doing things at great personal risk was part of everyday life for the Doctor and his companions.

The Doctor walked slowly towards Adric and knelt at his side directly opposite Nyssa, taking the boy's hand in his. "Adric," he whispered. "Adric, can you hear me?"

Adric opened his eyes and struggled to sit up. Finding himself unable to do so, he contented himself with turning his head in the Doctor's direction. "Doctor?" The word was barely audible and the Doctor thought he saw a look of fear in the boy's brown eyes. That was hardly surprising when you considered that Alzarians, young Alzarians especially, normally recovered very quickly; any failure to do so meant something was seriously wrong with them - and, of course, Adric would know this.

The Doctor paused, wondering what he should tell Adric; all his instincts told him not to say anything that might make the boy worry . . . Just for a moment, the Doctor recalled what had happened shortly after his most recent regeneration, when the Master had taken Adric prisoner and Tegan and Nyssa, knowing the Doctor was still in an unstable state, had tried to keep the news from him. Then, he continued. "Adric, Tegan and I have to leave for a while."

"Why?"

The Doctor shook his head, deciding it was best to avoid saying anything about the potentially dangerous mission which he, Tegan and the two Kylonian Scouts were about to embark on. "Don't worry about that. You just stay here and rest - Nyssa and Dorika will keep an eye on you."

"Doctor, I don't need people to look after me."

Despite himself, the Doctor found himself tempted to smile. Clearly, even laid up like this, Adric retained his usual resistance to being treated like a child, a trait which had caused a certain amount of tension in the past. "And I'm saying you do," the Doctor said, a look which said: "I'm not taking any nonsense from you, young man" crossing his face for a moment. "So," he added, "I suggest you try to get some sleep."

To the Doctor's relief, Adric obeyed, at least as far as closing his eyes. Or perhaps the boy didn't have the strength to argue right now. Whatever the reason, the Doctor decided it was time he left to join Tegan, Marena and Jound, all of whom were waiting outside. But, before he did so, he turned to Dorika. "Can I trust you to look after him?"

"I'll do my best." It was all Dorika could promise, but she knew that, in cases like this, even her best might not be enough.

* * *

Throughout all this, Nyssa hadn't moved. All her attention was focused on Adric and, even when the Doctor had knelt down opposite her, she had scarcely registered his presence. But, as he got up to leave, she raised her head, her eyes clouded with worry. "Doctor," she said, glancing down at Adric for a moment, "hurry back."

The Doctor paused in the doorway. "Yes, of course," was all he said, knowing what Nyssa must be feeling at the moment. Not only had she and Adric formed a close friendship, he knew from what Nyssa had told him that she had already lost her mother (her real mother, not the woman Nyssa's father had married shortly before the Doctor and Adric visited Traken) to a serious illness. Then, the Doctor withdrew, leaving Nyssa to begin a long vigil at Adric's side.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

_Adric stood on a cliff-top, looking down at the sea crashing against the rocks below. He had no idea where he was or even which planet this was, but it seemed he was alone here - no sign of the Doctor, Tegan or Nyssa. But something - the sound of movement, perhaps - made him turn to find himself facing someone he had never imagined he would see again. A youth, dark-haired like Adric was and bearing a clear physical resemblance, albeit with a slightly harder edge to his features, stood there silently._

_"Varsh?" Adric whispered. But it couldn't possibly be Varsh. Varsh was dead; Adric had seen him being dragged to his doom by a Marshman, remembered kneeling beside his body. Nonetheless, there was no denying that the youth standing just a few feet away looked exactly like the brother Adric had lost shortly before he stowed away on the TARDIS and became one of the Doctor's travelling companions. Tentatively, he stepped forward . . ._

_Abruptly, the youth's features began to melt until all resemblance to Varsh was gone. In his place was a creature with scaly skin, a head marked by very prominent veins, gills through which the creature breathed . . . A Marshman, one of the creatures that had emerged from the marshes of Alzarius every Mistfall to attack Adric's people. Instinctively, Adric tried to run, only to find that he couldn't - he couldn't move at all. Still the Marshman which, moments before, had seemed to be Varsh advanced, arms outstretched ready to strike._

_"No . . ." Adric's voice trembled as the Marshman moved in for the killing blow. "No, don't . . ."_

* * *

"Adric." Somehow, Nyssa's voice managed to penetrate the deep fog of delirium. "Adric, it's all right - it's only a fever dream."

Adric managed to open his eyes for a moment, just long enough to register the fact that Nyssa was beside him, applying a cool damp cloth to his forehead. Following Dorika's instructions, she was trying to keep his temperature down in the hope that doing so might buy them enough time for the Doctor and his party to obtain the antidote and get back to the Last City. But the toxin in the spores Adric had inhaled would not relinquish its hold so easily.

Nyssa looked down at Adric and thought for a moment of how obstinate he could be, constantly pushing the Doctor's patience to the limit with his misguided attempts to prove himself. She reached out her hand and placed it on top of Adric's, feeling the heat but maintaining her hold. As she did so, she glanced at the orange patch on Adric's shirt where he normally wore his star-shaped badge. That badge, awarded to him in recognition of his mathematical talents, meant a great deal to the boy and he was rarely seen without it; indeed, it and the belt he had inherited from Varsh were the only personal possessions Adric had brought with him from Alzarius. But Dorika had taken the precaution of removing it and was now keeping it safe until . . .

The sound of the door opening distracted Nyssa from her thoughts and she looked up to see Dorika and Kerez entering the room. The expressions on the faces of both Kylonians were unreadable, though Nyssa thought she saw a glimpse of sorrow in Kerez's eyes and guessed that he was thinking of the son he had lost as a result of the spores. Dorika had told her a little of what had happened to Pergon, how, though he had managed to get clear of the spores, he had quickly succumbed to their effects, how the experience had left Kerez broken in spirit. To see someone else fall victim to the spores must be almost more than the man could bear.

"Is there any news of the Doctor and the others?" Nyssa asked, trying to maintain her usual calm facade, which wasn't easy while Adric was in this condition.

"I'm afraid not," Dorika replied, shaking her head as she moved to check on Adric. So far, the boy was managing to hold his own, but the poison contained in the spores of the Jara Pods was capable of killing its victim in less than a day. That was what had happened to Pergon, who had been perfectly fine until his ill-advised trip into the jungle but was dead by the following dawn. "But," she added, seeing the anxious look on Nyssa's face, "it hasn't been long since they set out - we can't give up yet."

"You're right - I hope." Nyssa looked down at Adric, who seemed to have fallen into a fitful sleep, and promised herself that she would not leave his side for any reason. There was a chance, just a tiny chance, that the presence of a friend might help him hang on until the Doctor and the others returned.

* * *

Marena and Jound were using a brief break during the journey into Gark's territory to fill the Doctor and Tegan in on the history of their planet. "There was a time when Kylon was famed throughout the galaxy for its technology," Jound was saying. "Our people had dedicated themselves to the sciences in the belief that this would enable them to prosper. Only . . ." He paused.

"What's so bad about that?" asked Tegan, who knew from personal experience that pauses like that were generally followed by a piece of less-than-pleasant news. But, as she had said, what was so bad about an entire race dedicating itself to scientific advancements? Surely that was a good thing; after all, if it hadn't been for science, the human race would not have made even the limited progress into space that they had made in her time. Like many Earthlings from her generation, one of her most vivid childhood memories of a major event was the first moon landing in 1969, though, had anyone told the nine-year-old tomboy she was then that she would one day find herself travelling not only in space but also in time . . .

"They prospered a little too much," Marena said, picking up the thread of Jound's story and interupting Tegan's train of thought. "So they became . . . I suppose the word would be "decadent". Anyway, they lost sight of reason, became convinced the mere fact something was scientifically possible justified it. Some even went as far as to tinker with the very building blocks of life . . ."

At this, the Doctor turned his head sharply in Marena's direction. In his experience, attempting to play God in this way invariably led to trouble. Genetic manipulation was all very well if it was done for the right reasons, such as finding a cure for previously fatal diseases, but there were those who were prepared to use such technology for less altruistic reasons. Such as Davros, who had tinkered with the genetic structure of the Daleks, removing all emotions except hate and turning them into the greatest menace the Universe had ever known. And, even if you started out with the best of intentions, there was always the risk that one of your experiments could have unforeseen consequences, consequences that could spell disaster for you and your people.

"So," Marena was saying, "our people thought they could manipulate living matter, alter it to suit their purposes. And, for a time, they managed to get away with it."

"Until one of their experiments went badly wrong," added Jound. "A scientist named Jara was experimenting with one of the plants which grow on this planet; she hoped it might provide a cheap source of food . . . At least that's what the surviving records say. But, somewhere down the line, a mutation occurred and the plant's spores became toxic."

The Doctor and Tegan exchanged uneasy glances as they realised Jound must be talking about the Jara Pods, the same pods they had encountered and whose spores were responsible for Adric's condition. Why, the Doctor asked himself for the umpteenth time, couldn't people (of any race) learn that there were times when the best course of action was to leave well alone?

"So what happened?" asked Tegan.

"When the plant's pods burst, the spores were released into the atmosphere," Marena replied. "And everyone who inhaled them fell fatally ill within hours. The few who weren't exposed searched for an antidote and, eventually, they found one. But, by then, it was too late; the spores had virtually wiped out our people and that led to the fall of our civilization."

"We call that period "the Collapse"," added Jound. "And, since then, we've been taught to avoid the Jara Pods when they're spreading their spores."

* * *

Marena and Jound would probably have said a whole lot more, had Tegan not reminded them of one important fact. "Excuse me," she said, adopting her "don't try to argue with me" look. "But aren't we forgetting something?" When no-one replied, she hurried on. "Adric. While we're busy discussing Kylonian history, he's fighting for his life." And, she added silently, it was a fight he was going to lose, unless they were able to obtain the antidote and return to the Last City with it. Provided they could get past Gark and his Bandits first . . .

The Doctor turned round at the sound of her voice. Not long ago, she had been nagging him to get her back to Heathrow, berating him for yet another failed attempt. But, since their encounter with the Jara Pods and Adric's subsequent collapse, he had not heard her mention the subject once. Was she finally starting to sort out her priorities? To learn that some things were more important than her career as an air hostess? He did not know and there was no time to ponder the question; Adric's life was in danger and, every second they stayed here wasted precious time.

But, just as the Doctor was about to tell the rest of the party that it was time to continue their journey, a movement in the bushes caught his attention. Moments later, half-a-dozen of the spiked creatures he and his companions had encountered earlier emerged and stood shoulder-to-shoulder, directly in the path the Doctor and the others wanted to take. "Oh, rabbits!" muttered Tegan, recognising the creatures, creatures she had hoped never to see again.

"Quiloks," said Jound, who had no idea what rabbits were. "Primitive creatures, but very territorial. Once they start chasing you, they never give up."

"Unless you run right into the middle of the Jara Pods," the Doctor added. Then, seeing that Marena and Jound were looking at him questioningly, he filled them in. "We - my companions and I - encountered some of these Quiloks earlier. They chased us and . . . Of course!" He felt a small surge of guilt, though it was nothing compared to the guilt he would feel after the tragic outcome of one of his later adventures, as the realisation hit him. "Why didn't I realise?"

"Realise what, Doctor?" asked Tegan, warily eyeing the nearest Quilok.

"That there was danger in that clearing. The Quiloks must have known, or at least sensed it. But . . ." He broke off as he recalled how curious he had been about the pods and what the result of that curiosity had been. He had always had a habit of letting his curiosity, his fascination for unfamiliar things, get the better of him; indeed, his tutors at Prydon Academy had warned him on many occasions that curiosity without caution invariably led to trouble.

* * *

Meanwhile, Marena and Jound reached into their packs and each pulled out something which looked like an ordinary rock - until they were turned round to reveal that one surface was reflective. "Kylonite," Jound explained for the benefit of the Doctor and Tegan. "Comes in handy when you've got a band of Quiloks in your way."

"Doesn't do much good if you're faced with a whole crowd of them," Marena added. "But for small groups like this . . ." She held up her piece of Kylonite and pointed it in the direction of her planet's sun, as Jound did likewise.

"What are they doing?" Tegan whispered to the Doctor, as the two time-travellers stood watching the Kylonians. For the life of her, she could not see what good holding rocks up to the sun would do when you were faced with creatures like the Quiloks. Still, Marena and Jound seemed to know what they were doing, so she decided the best course of action would be to wait and see what happened next. She did not have long to wait; slowly, Marena and Jound, their eyes tightly closed, lowered the rocks Jound had refered to as Kylonite and pointed them in the direction of the Quiloks.

"Close your eyes!" Marena warned the Doctor and Tegan. "Otherwise, the flash could permanently damage your sight."

Catching the urgency in her voice, the Doctor and Tegan did as she instructed. Seconds later, they heard what sounded like a small explosion, followed by the screeching of the Quiloks. "Come on!" called Marena's voice. "Before they have time to recover. And you can open your eyes now," she added.

The Doctor and Tegan did so, to see the Quiloks blundering around, rubbing their eyes and seeming totally oblivious to the fact that there were four people within attacking distance. Indeed, none of the spiked creatures moved as the small party slipped past them as easily as if they had been inanimate stones. "How did you do that?" Tegan asked Marena, impressed that the Kylonians had been able to neutralise the Quiloks so easily. She had thought they were going to have to run and that would have cost them time Adric could ill afford to lose.

"We used our Kylonite," Marena replied. "It's one of this planet's minerals - and it's got some pretty special properties," she added, putting her piece of Kylonite back in her pack.

The Doctor looked at her thoughtfully. "Let me guess," he said in the tone of voice which said he didn't need to guess because he had already worked out the answer himself. "It absorbs the light of your sun, right?"

"And concentrates that light into a strong beam," added Marena, nodding to acknowledge that what the Doctor had said was correct. "So Jound and I used it to blind those Quiloks for a while. It'll wear off shortly - Quilok eyes have a mechanism which protects them from damage - but, if humanoid eyes were exposed to such intense light, it could lead to permanent blindness."

"Thanks for the warning," the Doctor said, recalling two occasions where one of his companions had suffered flash blindness. The first had been Sarah Jane, whose eyes had been affected by a ray from the ring worn by Maren, the woman who had led the Sisterhood of Karn before her suicide. Later, Leela had glanced back as the lighthouse the Doctor had converted into a laser beam shot down a Rutan spacecraft . . . Fortunately, in both cases, the damage had not been permanent, though there had been an interesting side-effect in Leela's case; for some reason the Doctor had never been able to fathom, the flash had caused what he had termed "pigmentation dispersal", changing her eyes from brown to blue.

But both women were now gone from the TARDIS; Sarah Jane was back on Earth and Leela was on Gallifrey, married to Commander Andred. Right now, the Doctor had to deal with a crisis that was affecting a member of the current TARDIS crew. Adric had been poisoned and, unless the Doctor was able to obtain the antidote in time . . .

* * *

Back in the Last City, Adric's condition was still giving Nyssa and Dorika cause for concern. They were doing everything they could to make him comfortable and help him to hang on until the Doctor and the others returned. But it was a battle in which they had little hope of a successful outcome; the poison from the spores had taken a firm grip on the boy and, though his body tried to fight off the effects, even his innate healing ability was not enough.

Nyssa gently dabbed a wet cloth over Adric's face, hoping the cool water might ease his fever. It wasn't much, but it was the only thing she could do for him. And, though Dorika was a Healer, she too could do little for the young Alzarian, except hope that the Doctor and his party returned in time and that they brought the antidote with them. At least it was more than she had been able to do for Pergon; in some ways, she felt she owed it to the Kylonian youth to make sure this boy was able to hang on, to make sure the Doctor's trip into Gark's territory would not be in vain.

Just for a moment, Adric stirred, opening his eyes and turning his head in Nyssa's direction. "Nyssa?" he whispered, unable to speak any louder. "Is the Doctor back yet?"

Nyssa shook her head slowly. "Try not to worry about it," she said, trying to disguise her own anxiety. But it wasn't easy, not when a friend's life was in danger and all she could do was wait and hope that help would arrive in time. "You need to rest," she added, knowing how agitated Adric could get. The last thing he needed right now was to make his already serious condition worse through worrying about things beyond his control.

Under normal circumstances, Adric responded to any attempt to tell him what to do with defiance, peevish complaining or what could only be described as outright sullenness. After more than one of his frequent arguments with the Doctor, he had stormed off to his quarters and slammed the door behind him, a sound which the Doctor and Tegan suspected would, had Adric been a Earth boy from at least the second half of the 20th Century, have been followed by the pounding beat of a stereo system turned up full blast. But there were still aspects of human culture that meant little to the young Alzarian.

At present, however, Adric lacked the strength to argue and he quickly fell asleep once more. But it was a restless sleep, troubled by fever-induced nightmares about Marshmen, the Great Vampire, the Master . . . Nyssa, watching her friend and hearing him mumbling incoherently, could do nothing beyond offer him the reassurance of her presence.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Doctor and his party had found their path blocked once again. This time, it was not Quiloks but a group of male humanoids who were impeding their progress. Tegan, keeping a wary distance, quickly eyed them up; all of them had the unkempt appearance that came from living rough, including several battle scars. In addition, the two who appeared to be in charge were both carrying guns that looked as though they dated from before the "Collapse" Jound had mentioned, held, the Doctor and Tegan noted, upside down.

The Doctor turned to Tegan and the two Kylonians. "Let me do the talking," he said, keeping his voice low to avoid being overheard. Then, he turned his attention to the two leaders. "Ah, good afternoon, gentlemen. I wonder if you'd mind stepping aside and letting us . . ."

He got no further before the taller of the men he was addressing cut him off in mid-sentence. "Silence, stranger! Take one more step and . . ." With slow deliberation, he pretended to cut his own throat.

The Doctor and Tegan exchanged glances, realising that an already difficult situation was about to be complicated further.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Things were going from bad to worse. Not only had Adric inhaled spores so toxic that even he could not resist their effects, the Doctor and his party had run into an ambush while out searching for the antidote that could cure the boy. These had to be the Bandits Kerez had warned them about; they certainly had the rough look of those who live outside the law. The Doctor had encountered many similar gangs on his travels and knew from experience that there was only one way to deal with them: stand your ground and show that you are not afraid. And the fact that the two with guns didn't appear to know how to hold them correctly might give him an extra edge.

He adjusted the stick of celery on his coat and stepped forward, disregarding the warning not to. "Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. We're on a very important mission and we don't have time for this right now." As he spoke, the Doctor thought of Adric, fighting for his life back in the Last City, and vowed to himself that nothing, certainly not a band of ruffians, was going to prevent him from obtaining what he had come for.

But the man who had threatened the Doctor made no response - except to spit on the ground at the Time Lord's feet, an action which prompted a grimace of disgust from Tegan. "Pah! I don't care about no 'portant missions! Far as we're concerned, you're all trespassers!" He turned to the rest of the gang. "What do we do with trespassers?"

"Er . . . we kills 'em?" ventured a man who wore a leather headband around his greasy dark hair.

"Oh, Kobris has been payin' attention." There was a slightly sarcastic edge to the man's voice. "Well, I've got a better idea - I says we takes 'em back and lets Gark decide what to do with 'em. All in favour . . ."

All the men in the gang immediately raised their hands, except for two who were hovering on the periphery - and they quickly followed suit when the man who had called for the "vote" glared at them. "Democracy in action," the Doctor muttered to Tegan. Moments later, someone roughly grabbed him and tied his hands in front of him, as Tegan, Marena and Jound all received the same treatment. This kind of thing had happened to him, or his companions, or both more times than he could count.

* * *

Presently, the Doctor, Tegan and the two Kylonians found themselves being shoved unceremoniously through what looked like the entrance to a cave. But it soon became clear that this was no ordinary cave, since it was strewn with objects which could only have come from an advanced technology, though it was hard to tell how much of it still worked. However, there was little doubt in the Doctor's mind that all this technology was from Kylon before the Collapse. Had their captors salvaged it and, if so, what were they planning to do with it all? The Doctor had seen enough of these Bandits to know that they had no real understanding of the technological goldmine they were sitting on.

But his thoughts were soon distracted by the sight of a man sitting on a chair made out of what looked like pieces of broken-down machinery. This man looked just as rough and ready as the rest of the gang, the only thing that marked him out being the elaborate head-dress he wore, which was decorated with the horns from some unknown Kylonian animal, plus what looked like several dyed Quilok spines. He was chewing on a piece of meat, but seemed completely oblivious to the fact that grease was dripping down his chin. "Well, Erdus?" he said, not bothering to wait until his mouth was empty of anything other than tongue and teeth. "What have you brought this time?"

The leader of the band who had captured the Doctor and his party stepped forward. "We found these four trespassers on your patch," he replied, dropping down on one knee as he spoke. "What d'you want us to do with 'em?"

The man in the chair looked as though he was about to reply, but the Doctor beat him to it. "Ah, you must be Gark," he said, flashing a disarming smile in the man's direction. "And I wonder if you could . . ."

He was silenced as the Bandit behind him prodded him roughly in the back. "Shut it!" the man snarled, tightening his grip on the Doctor. "No-one speaks in Gark's presence without his say-so! And you'd do well to remember that!"

Gark ignored the interuption and stepped down from his chair to inspect the prisoners. Pacing up and down in front of them, he studied them closely, though Tegan did not like the way his gaze seemed to linger over her chest a little longer than she felt was strictly necessary. Clearly, she thought as Marena was subjected to similar scrutiny, no-one had ever taught him that it was impolite to ogle women, whether they were Kylonians or humans. She recalled an incident which had happened to her the Christmas before she got mixed up with the Doctor; a man had tried to look down the front of her dress at a party - and had been rewarded with a well-aimed slap across the face. And, had Tegan's hands been free, Gark would have received the same treatment.

* * *

Finishing his inspection, Gark stepped back a pace. "These two are clearly Kylonians," he said, gesturing towards Marena and Jound. "But the other two look like they aren't . . ." He slowly turned towards the Doctor and Tegan. "Now, who are you and where are you from?" he demanded.

Tegan did not reply; she was recalling the time she and Adric had been captured by the Terileptil leader and interogated for information about the Doctor. Under questioning, Adric had told the Terileptil about the TARDIS, though he had cursed himself for his foolishness afterwards. Tegan, in a rare moment of solidarity with the young Alzarian, had assured him that, if he hadn't revealed the information, she would have, if only to save them from being tortured.

The Doctor, however, did not hesitate, though he decided it would be safer to avoid mentioning that he was a Time Lord; he had had plenty of experience of races who might take advantage of this fact. "I'm the Doctor," he said, looking Gark full in the face. "I'm from Gallifrey," he added, hoping Gark had not heard of the Time Lords' home planet. "And that young woman . . ." He nodded in Tegan's direction. " . . . is Tegan, an Earthling."

"And what are you doing in our territory?"

The Doctor answered Gark's question with one of his own. "Are you familiar with the Jara Pods?"

"Their spores poisoned most of Kylon - everyone knows that." Gark's tone was scornful, as though he could not believe the ignorance of this stranger. "So every last one of 'em was wiped out! What do they have to do with anything?"

"They weren't wiped out as completely as you think," the Doctor replied, trying to keep his tone of voice neutral, a difficult task when the image of Adric lying collapsed on the jungle floor kept forcing its way into his mind. "Several still grow out in the jungle - a friend of mine has been poisoned!"

"And where is this "friend" now?"

"Back in the Last City. We came here to get the antidote we need to save him." The Doctor found that his voice was going up slightly, as often happened when he was under stress. And he was under a great deal of stress right now, knowing that every second he and the others were held here wasted precious time. "That's all we came for. We weren't planning to rob you or take over your territory."

Gark laughed, but it was not a warm and friendly laugh. Rather, it was the laugh of someone who knows they have won the day and wants to gloat at their opponent. "Great story, Docker - or whatever you call yourself! But that doesn't alter the fact that you're trespassers. And any trespassers we catch are put to death!"

* * *

"How is he?"

Nyssa, kneeling beside Adric, turned round at the sound of Dorika's voice, her eyes clouded with worry. She wanted to reply, but a lump had formed in her throat, making it impossible for her to speak. Instead, she shook her head slowly and looked down at Adric once more; at the same time, she reached out her hand and entwined her fingers in his, hoping against hope that the Doctor and the others would return with the antidote in time. Until they did, she promised herself that she would not leave Adric's side for a second.

"I'm sorry," Dorika said, moving closer to the young Traken and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I wish there was more I could do." She shook her head, recalling as she did so everything she had ever learned about the Jara Pods and their spores. The poison in the spores was deadly and only the antidote which the Doctor, Tegan, Marena and Jound had gone in search of could counter its effects. Without it, the only thing she could do was keep Adric as comfortable as possible and offer consolation to Nyssa.

Nyssa wished there was something practical she could do, something besides just staying beside Adric and hoping help would arrive in time. There were, she recalled, a couple of experiments she had been working on in the TARDIS . . . But the TARDIS was out in the jungle, besides which the Doctor had the key. However, even if she had had access to her equipment, Nyssa knew she would be too worried about Adric to concentrate at the moment. And she knew how dangerous it could be to carry out an experiment while you were distracted.

For a moment, she wished she had gone with the Doctor and the others; at least then she would be doing something useful. But her next thought was of her people and how she had left them to go in search of her missing father, not knowing that it was already too late and her father was dead, his body taken over by the Master. To add to her grief, the destruction of Traken had happened at around the same time. Nyssa knew it was irrational, but she couldn't help thinking that, if she left Adric now, she would lose him as well - and she had already lost so much.

She tightened her grip on Adric's hand and silently willed him to keep fighting, to resist the poison in his system long enough for the Doctor and the others to complete their mission.

* * *

It was perhaps just as well that Nyssa was unaware of the Doctor's current situation, as it would only have added to her fears.

The Doctor, Tegan, Marena and Jound were each grabbed by two Bandits and frogmarched down a corridor which led further into the cave. Except, the Doctor and Tegan now realised, this was not really a cave; the walls were too uniformly smooth and they could see clearly, even though there was no natural light source. This had to be an underground base of some sort, probably left over from before the Collapse, though Tegan couldn't help wondering how the lights could still be working after so long. The Doctor, however, didn't have to wonder; he knew of many advanced lighting systems which could keep functioning almost indefinitely.

The four prisoners were marched down endless corridors, until they arrived at a bare room and were shoved roughly inside. Seconds later, the door was slammed shut and a key turned in the lock, as mocking laughter was heard outside the room. "We've got you trespassers now! You'll stay there until Gark's ready for you!" called the voice of one of the guards. Tegan suspected it was the one Gark had addressed as Erdus, but she wasn't sure - and frankly she didn't care.

As the guards headed back up the corridor, she turned to the Doctor. "Doctor, we've got to do something! Do they really mean to kill us?"

"What do you think?" the Doctor asked in reply. He had been in similar situations before, either alone or with at least one companion, facing the prospect of having his life terminated. But he'd always managed to escape at the last minute and hoped the same thing would happen again; there was so much at stake this time, not only the lives of the four people in the room, but a fifth life which would also be lost unless he and his party could return to the Last City with the antidote. If the worst came to the worst, Nyssa could become the last surviving member of their little group of time-travellers . . . But the Doctor shook his head to dismiss even the thought of this gloomy scenario and turned to Marena and Jound. "Is there any way out of here?"

"Only the door as far as I can see," replied Marena.

"Which is locked," added Jound, sitting down on the floor. "And none of us has a key, so what do we do now?"

The Doctor did not reply; he was thinking that, had this happened before his encounter with the Terileptils, he could have devised a plan which involved the sonic screwdriver. But, with the screwdriver destroyed, a valuable tool which had enabled him to escape from many seemingly impossible situations was gone. Somehow, he and the others would have to come up with an alternative means of escaping, but they had no way of knowing how long they had.

* * *

Hours later, Nyssa still hadn't moved from Adric's side. Night had fallen some time ago, but she continued to kneel beside him, holding his hand and whispering words of comfort. It pained her to see Adric struck down like this; she knew his people recovered very rapidly under normal circumstances and that, had the poison he had inhaled been less virulent, he would have shaken off its effects hours ago. But, as the Doctor had said out in the jungle, there were times when even an Alzarian's innate healing abilities were not enough.

Adric seemed to be sleeping at the moment, but it was the restless sleep of delirium. He lay with his eyes closed, burning with fever, his breathing unnaturally rapid, as Nyssa dipped a cloth into the basin of water at her side and began to dab the cloth over his brow once more. As she did so, she felt a yawn coming and quickly stifled it; sleep was a luxury she could not afford right now, not while Adric was in this state. She could hear him moaning in his sleep and mumbling what mostly sounded like strings of nonsense words, though she did once catch the words: "Varsh, no!" and knew he was reliving the moment his brother was killed. She looked at him in the dim light of the oil lamp which Dorika had lit without her noticing and shook her head.

Nyssa was so focused on Adric that she did not notice when Dorika came into the room, until the Kylonian touched her on the shoulder. "Nyssa," Dorika said, once Nyssa had turned to face her, "I think you'd better get some sleep. I'll get Idral or Tagav to take over."

"I can't . . ." Nyssa tried to say, before she was interupted by a yawn, one she was unable to stop. She knew she was tired, but she dared not leave Adric for one moment, fearing that, if she did, it would be the last time she saw him.

Dorika gave Nyssa the look she normally reserved for recalcitrant child patients. "It's for your own good, young lady," she said in a voice which somehow mixed warm and motherly with firm and commanding. "If you don't rest, you'll make yourself ill and that won't do anybody any good, your friend least of all." She understood what Nyssa must be feeling, but she also knew that, unless the young Traken got some sleep, she was in danger of collapsing from exhaustion. Slowly, Nyssa staggered to her feet. She was reluctant to leave Adric right now, but something told her that Dorika would not rest until she did as ordered.

"I'll get one of Kerez's servants to show you to your quarters," Dorika told her. "And don't worry," she added, seeing Nyssa's anxiety and guessing the reason for it. "I'll see that you're woken if . . . anything happens."

* * *

With Tegan's help, the Doctor had gone through his pockets, searching for something that could be used as a means of getting the door open. But, though they had unearthed an assortment of odds and ends - like the TARDIS, the Doctor's pockets were bigger on the inside than on the outside - there was nothing that fulfilled their requirements. The penknife the Doctor had been using when he was trying to take a sample of the Jara Pods might have been useful here, but he had dropped it when the pods started bursting.

"Is there nothing we can use?" Tegan asked, looking desperately at the contents of the Doctor's pockets.

The Doctor shook his head, recalling how he had used a pistol to shoot a door unlocked on 17th Century Earth. But no-one in the TARDIS crew carried fire-arms; the Doctor disapproved of guns under most circumstances. As for Marena and Jound, their planet lacked the technology to produce guns, though this had clearly not always been the case; some of Gark's men had guns, even if they didn't know how to hold them properly and appeared to be using them purely for show. In any case, shooting out the lock wasn't going to be an option this time . . .

"Then we've had it, haven't we?" Tegan's voice trembled slightly.

The Doctor moved closer to her, but the bonds on his wrists prevented him from putting a comforting arm around her. "Brave heart, Tegan," he told her, before repeating the words in his mind with Adric's name substituted for Tegan's. Somehow, he told himself, they would have to find a way of getting out of here and completing their mission; Adric was depending on him and he was determined not to let the boy down.

At that moment, the sound of movement outside caught his attention.


	6. Chapter 6

****

Chapter Six

Hearing the sound of a key in the door, the Doctor and Tegan braced themselves to see who was on the other side, though the odds of it being a friend were remote. As far as they knew, everyone in the immediate vicinity apart from Jound and Marena was on Gark's side. Being imprisoned and placed under sentence of death for the slightest reason (or for no reason at all, apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time) had long been an occupational hazard of travelling in the TARDIS. But, this time, there was more at stake than usual. Unless the Doctor and the others could find some way of escaping whatever fate Gark had lined up, obtaining the antidote they had come for and getting back to the Last City, Adric was finished.

The door slowly opened. Instinctively, Tegan backed into the shadows where Jound and Marena were sitting, trying to stay out of sight of whoever it was that had unlocked the door. The Doctor, however, stayed where he was, hoping he might be able to take the unknown person on the other side of the door by surprise. Probably one of Gark's men, he thought to himself, sent to fetch the prisoners and bring them to their place of execution. And four people, even unarmed and with their wrists tied together, should be able to take on one man. On the other hand, the Doctor knew it was unlikely that there _would_ only be one Bandit waiting outside . . .

He was ready for anything, anything except who it was that was on the other side of the door.

When the door opened, the person on the other side was revealed to be a young girl, probably around the same age as Adric, with long brown hair and grey eyes. She had the same rough appearance of Gark and his Bandits, but there was a furtive look about her, as though she was afraid of being discovered. "Quick!" she said in an urgent whisper. "Get out before someone comes!"

Catching the urgency in the girl's tone, the Doctor hurriedly gathered the contents of his pockets together and exited the room, as Tegan, Marena and Jound followed. Once they were out, the girl produced a knife from the belt she wore round her waist and used it to cut the bonds round the prisoners' wrists. "Thanks," the Doctor said, offering the girl his hand as a gesture of friendship, though she seemed not to recognise the meaning of this gesture. The Doctor, however, ignored this and hurried on. "I'm the Doctor. This is Tegan, Nys . . . Sorry, force of habit," he corrected himself as he automatically began to say the names of all his companions. The Doctor was generally the one who handled introductions whenever he and his companions met anyone. "Anyway, that's Marena and that's Jound," he added, indicating each of the Kylonians in turn.

"I'm Talda," the girl said. "And, unless you want to feed the Axaron in the morning, you'd better come with me."

* * *

Talda ushered the Doctor and the others out into the corridor, all the while keeping a wary eye out for Gark's men. Both the Doctor and Tegan had several questions they longed to ask her. In particular, was she one of the Bandits? If not, why had Gark spared her life when he normally put all trespassers to death? And, if she was a Bandit, why was she helping prisoners to escape? But now was not the time for questions; they had to get out of here as quickly as possible. And, after that, they would have to find the antidote and escape back to the Last City with it, evading Gark and his men at the same time.

And how were they going to find the antidote if they had no idea where to look? All Kerez had told them was that it was somewhere in the territory controlled by Gark and his Bandits, no mention of precisely where they had to look. Nonetheless, they had to try, for Adric's sake. The Doctor recalled how, on discovering that the boy had stowed away on the TARDIS, he had planned to return him to the Starliner at the first opportunity. Instead, Adric had become a member of the TARDIS crew and, despite Romana's misgivings about whether it was right to remove the youngster from his home universe, later accompanied the Doctor into N-Space.

Now, with Adric poisoned by the spores from the Jara Pods, the Doctor found himself questioning whether that had been the right decision. If he had returned Adric to the Starliner, the boy would now be with others of his race, on the way to Terradon if they weren't there already. Instead, he was . . .

"Someone's coming!" Talda called in an urgent whisper, interupting the Doctor's train of thought. She ushered the Doctor and the others into a side corridor, as Erdus and two other Bandits walked past, talking loudly.

"Gark says the Axaron ain't had a decent meal in months," one of the Bandits was saying. Like all the members of Gark's gang, he was covered in battle scars and wore crude, shapeless clothing.

"Yeah, them trespassers showin' up was a stroke of luck," his companion agreed. "Mind you, when that one in the long coat said he was from Gallifrey . . ."

"So? What about it?"

"Well, don't the old stories say the Gallifreyans are time-travellers? As I recall, they're supposed to be pretty powerful as well. What if . . ." The man paused and looked around as if expecting to see several powerful Time Lords marching down the corridor, their faces stern and implacable. "What if they've got somethin' to do with them trespassers?"

The first Bandit snorted. "Orgom, if you remembered the old stories properly, you'd know the Gallifreyans don't interfere in the affairs of other planets. 'Sides, when the Axaron's finished . . ." That was as much as Tegan and the Kylonians heard before the Bandits moved out of earshot.

Though the Doctor, with his heightened senses, could have eavesdropped for a little longer, he chose not to. If the Bandits knew something about Gallifrey and the Time Lords, it could only mean the Kylonians had had contact with Gallifrey at some point. But when? And why? It was true that the Time Lords had a policy of not meddling when it came to other planets and their affairs; the Doctor had once been forced to regenerate and exiled to Earth for repeatedly breaking that law. But there were times when even the Time Lords had to intervene, if, for example, the consequences of doing nothing were potentially far worse - and the Doctor had first-hand experience of being sent on these missions.

But the Doctor had no time to think about what, if any, connection there might have been between Kylon and Gallifrey. Somehow, he and the others had to obtain the antidote they had come for and get back to the Last City, provided they could evade Gark and his Bandits.

* * *

Even though Dorika had urged her to get some rest, Nyssa was finding it impossible to sleep. Her mind kept flitting from Adric to those currently searching for the antidote that could save the boy, then back again. What if the Doctor and the others found the antidote, but failed to return to the Last City in time? Or, worse, what if they failed to return at all? The consequences of that were almost too terrible to contemplate. Dorika and Kerez had not told her much about the effects of the spores, but they had told her enough for her to know how anyone who inhaled them would be affected.

First, the victim would suffer from watering eyes and uncontrollable coughing, though these initial symptoms would quickly disappear. However, this would be followed by the person who had inhaled the spores collapsing with a high fever, as the toxin in the spores spread throughout his or her body. If nothing was done to remove the poison from the victim's system, death was inevitable, though the victim invariably slipped into a coma before that point was reached. And the only thing that could prevent this from happening to Adric was the antidote the Doctor had gone in search of, the antidote which could only be obtained from territory controlled by a gang of Bandits.

There was nothing Nyssa could do but wait and hope. She thought back to what she had said to Adric on 17th Century Earth, after he had escaped from the Terileptils but had been forced to leave Tegan behind. "Try not to worry," Nyssa had told the boy. "You can't do anything for her." Now, she found herself in a similar position; the life of another member of the TARDIS crew was in danger and there was nothing she could do to help.

In the end, finding that sleep was proving elusive, Nyssa got up and walked over to the window, where she stood staring out at the Kylonian night. Kylon, she noted, had two moons, the larger appearing slightly smaller in the sky than Earth's moon, while the smaller appeared as a bright point of light. The latter was easily confused with a particularly luminous star, unless you knew how to spot the difference. As she stood there, Nyssa's thoughts strayed back to her lost home world and how it had been swallowed up by the Entropy Field, with no trace left behind apart from herself. Somewhere in space, there was a gap where Traken used to be, though Nyssa tried to avoid thinking of this; the memory was still too painful.

Nyssa did not believe in any organised religion; her people, for the most part, had had no time for such things, considering it to be little more than superstition. Instead, she looked on the Universe in purely scientific terms, while never losing sight of the fact that she was a living, emotional being. In this way, she was able to think logically, while not allowing logic to dominate at the expense of emotion. Unlike the Cybermen she would meet in a later adventure and who would be responsible for yet another loss in her life . . .

For now, though, Nyssa gazed at the Kylonian night sky and silently willed the Doctor and his party to return in time to save Adric.

* * *

Meanwhile, Erdus, Orgom and the third Bandit had reached the room where the Doctor and the others had been imprisoned - to find it empty. However, there were no signs that the door had been forced open; rather, it had been unlocked from the outside. But who could have done it? Someone with enough foolish courage to steal Gark's keys, that much was certain. But what could they hope to gain from such an act of treachery? Whoever it was that had freed the prisoners would, when caught, face the same fate as the Doctor and the others: feeding the Axaron.

Erdus, as the senior Bandit out of the three, immediately decided that Gark ought to be informed. So, within minutes, all three had filed into Gark's quarters and stood looking down at the snoring figure of their leader, trying to gather the courage to rouse him. Gark disliked being woken up at the best of times and the news Erdus was about to deliver would only make his temper worse. Nonetheless, one of them would have to face this unpleasent task; Gark had to be informed that the prisoners had escaped and that they must have had help to do so.

"Orgom," Erdus said finally, with a pointed look at the man.

But Orgom refused to meet Erdus's gaze, knowing from experience what it meant. "Hey! Why do I always get all the tough jobs?"

"Are you disobeyin' my orders?" Erdus's voice was dangerously quiet and he began to stroke the knife in his waistband as if in anticipation of shoving it into Orgom if the man didn't shut up and do as he was told.

"No, I was just thinkin' - why can't Broath . . ." Orgom nodded towards the Bandit who had accompanied himself and Erdus into Gark's quarters. ". . . do it for . . .?"

Before Orgom could complete his sentence, Erdus seized him by the front of his shirt and pulled him up so that the faces of the two Bandits were only inches apart. "Because I'm orderin' _you_, that's why! Now, get on with it!" With that, he threw Orgom down, sending him sprawling across Gark's sleeping form. Gark was awake instantly - and saying that he was not happy would be like saying Daleks are not very nice, a complete understatement.

"Who gave you permission to wake me up?" he raged, as Orgom hurriedly picked himself up and backed away in a desperate bid to avoid his leader's wrath. "Fools! You'll feed the Axaron for this!"

"Beggin' your pardon, Gark," Erdus said, also trying to avoid finding himself on the wrong end of Gark's temper. "But it's about them prisoners, the ones we locked up."

"Well? What about 'em?"

"They've . . . escaped."

"WHAT?" If Gark had been angry before, he was apoplectic with rage now. Had he had a knife to hand, it would have been sticking out of Erdus's stomach within seconds.

"They've escaped," repeated Erdus. "We went to check they was still safely locked in and found they was gone."

"Then, don't just stand there, you fools! Find them! Search every inch of this place! And, if you fail, it will be _you_ that gets fed to the Axaron!"

* * *

Talda crept cautiously around the corner, constantly on the alert for any sign of pursuit. Satisfied that all was clear, that there was no-one lying in wait, she hurried back and beckoned to the Doctor and the others. Having no choice but to trust her, they followed, though there were still questions the Doctor and Tegan longed to ask her. Who was she? Why was she living with Gark and his Bandits? But there was no time for any of that right now, not while they were still in danger of being recaptured. And, on top of that, they still had to find the antidote, wherever it was. However, the Doctor suspected that Gark knew nothing about the antidote; otherwise, he would have offered it to the Doctor, but only on conditions that the Doctor doubted he would agree to willingly.

As they crept along, an unpleasant thought suddenly occured to Tegan. "Talda," she said, "what exactly is this Axron you mentioned?"

"The Axaron," replied Talda, still keeping a wary eye out for any pursuers. "It's Gark's pet; he keeps it in a pit and . . ."

"He feeds people to it, doesn't he?" Tegan finished, her voice beginning to sound slightly hysterical. "That's what you meant when you'd said we'd be feeding the Axaron!" As Talda nodded grimly, Tegan's sense of reason left her. She forgot about the need for caution, the fact that they were currently fugitives; all she wanted to do was get out of here as quickly as possible. "Then we've got to get out of here!" With that, she barged past Talda and ran out into the corridor without stopping to make sure the coast was clear.

The Doctor knew he had to act quickly; Tegan was difficult to reason with at the best of times and she could well have put them all in danger by rushing off like this. She was perhaps one of the most headstrong companions he had ever had, prone to rushing into situations without stopping to consider what the consequences might be. Indeed, it had been that very trait that led her to try to dematerialise the TARDIS back on Monarch's spacecraft, even though she lacked the knowledge to handle the space-time machine properly. Much like Adric's escapade with the TSS . . .

And it now looked as though Tegan's impulsiveness was going to lead to more trouble, on top of everything else that had happened today. First, the TARDIS had materialised at the wrong point in space and time - again. This had been followed by Tegan, annoyed that the Doctor had once more failed in his attempts to get her home, storming outside, forcing the Doctor, Nyssa and Adric to go after her. Then, the Quiloks had chased them to the clearing where the Jara Pods grew, which, in turn, led to Adric inhaling the spores which had poisoned him . . . The Doctor hurried after Tegan and grabbed her arm as he tried to reason with her.

"Why do you never listen to a word I say?" he demanded. He was about to add that he didn't know who was worse in this respect - Tegan or Adric - but thought better of it. "In case you've forgotten, we're on the run from Gark's men and that means we have to keep out of sight!"

"Well, I'm sick of skulking in the shadows!" Tegan retorted. "In case _you've_ forgotten, Adric is very ill! We're the only ones who can save him!"

"And we can't do that if we're dead!" The Doctor was struggling to control himself and briefly found himself wishing Nyssa, and not Tegan, had accompanied him on this mission. Nyssa was far more level-headed than either Tegan or Adric; she would not have gone charging ahead like this. "Please, Tegan, stop and think for once. It won't do anyone any good if Gark's men catch us, least of all Adric."

Tegan was about to reply when the Bandits Erdus, Orgom and Broath, alerted by the sound of raised voices, appeared on the scene, along with several other Bandits whom they had rallied to help in the search for the fugitives. "There they are!" Erdus shouted. "Don't let 'em get away!"

* * *

From their hiding place, Jound, Marena and Talda could only watch as the Doctor and Tegan were recaptured. There was nothing the three Kylonians could do; the Bandits had them outnumbered and, besides, Talda had her own reasons for not wanting to be caught. Nonetheless, they knew they had to do something, not only for the sake of the Doctor and Tegan, but also for Adric. Somehow, they would have to make sure that, this time, the Axaron went hungry, that it never got to sample the taste of either Time Lord or human.

"Come on!" Talda called in an urgent whisper, beckoning to the two Scouts.

They followed her cautiously, drawing on years of training back in the Last City. As she crouched in the shadows, Marena found herself thinking about the argument that had taken place between the Doctor and Tegan just before the Bandits showed up. She had to admit that both of them had made valid points; Tegan was right when she said they were Adric's only hope right now and the Doctor was right when he said they wouldn't help the boy if, through lack of caution, they got themselves caught and killed. Now, the Doctor and Tegan had been caught and only Jound, Talda and herself could prevent them from being fed to the Axaron.

* * *

The Doctor and Tegan found themselves tied to stakes placed at the edge of a large pit. From deep within the pit, Tegan heard the guttural growling of some unearthly creature which she rightly assumed to be the Axaron. "Sounds hungry, doesn't he?" she said to the Doctor, her eyes wide with fear.

"Best not to think about it," the Doctor told her, recalling previous encounters with monsters and pits he had had on his travels. Among those he recalled was Aggedor, the Royal Beast of Peladon, whom he had encountered twice during his third incarnation and whom he had been able to tame with a Venusian lullaby. And then there was Erato, the ambassador from the planet Tythonus, who had been imprisoned in a pit by the power-hungry Lady Adrasta, a woman who would stop at nothing to maintain absolute control of the metal supply on her home planet of Chloris. But, far from being a man-eating "Creature" as Adrasta had claimed, Erato lived by ingesting the chlorophyll found in plants; though he had killed many of the people thrown into his pit, he had not intended to do so. If only all monsters were so easily tamed or would turn out to be harmless . . .

Tegan tried to follow the Doctor's advice, but it wasn't easy to avoid thinking about being on an alien monster's menu when the creature in question could be heard growling only a few feet away.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

All hope seemed to be lost. The Doctor and Tegan could clearly hear the Axaron growling deep within its pit, hungry for fresh meat. Erdus had tied both of them to stakes, making sure they were bound as securely as possible, then left to inform Gark that two of the trespassers had been caught. Before he left, he had taken much sadistic pleasure in telling them what was going to happen to them, that they were going to be lowered into the pit and the Axaron would tear them limb from limb.

Tegan had tried to loosen her bonds by moving around, but they were too tight and she had been forced to give up. What was it about the Doctor that meant he kept attracting trouble like a flame attracts moths? Did he have some sort of death wish? These questions and many others circulated through Tegan's mind as she struggled to avoid looking into the pit where the Axaron lurked, waiting for its victims. She did not know what the creature looked like and, quite frankly, she didn't want to know. But she knew it was largely her fault she and the Doctor were in this situation; after all, she was the one who had gone rushing ahead without making sure the coast was clear. And the only reason she had accompanied the Doctor on this mission in the first place was because he was her only hope of getting home.

Home, Earth in the late 20th Century, seemed further away than ever. But, then, Tegan thought of Nyssa, who had no home to go back to, and Adric, whose home was in another universe. And thinking of Adric reminded her of something the boy had said while the Doctor was exploring Monarch's spacecraft. She had been fretting that she was going to lose her job if they were delayed for much longer, to which Adric had responded with the words: "Look, we're fifth dimensional in this thing. He'll get you on your flight if he's out there a week." At the time, Tegan had thought Adric was simply trying to show off his intellectual superiority and had demanded to know what they were supposed to do in the meantime. And when, moments later, she heard him muttering audibly about the "mindlessness" of women, Tegan had reacted with barely restrained anger.

What was it about Adric that kept bringing out the worst in her? Tegan knew she and the young Alzarian could put their differences aside if they had to; back on 17th Century Earth, they had managed to do so long enough to devise a plan to escape from the Terileptils, even if it had not gone entirely according to plan. But she also knew that it wouldn't be long before Adric said or did something to annoy her and they would be squabbling once again. And, soon, it might not matter; Adric had been struck down by the spores of the Jara Pods and the Doctor and Tegan were about to become Axaron food.

But, in that moment, Tegan vowed to herself that, if they could only get out of this mess, she was going to stop nagging the Doctor to get her back to Heathrow and at least try to enjoy life as a member of the TARDIS crew.

* * *

Meanwhile, Marena, Jound and Talda were hiding nearby, having hurriedly devised a plan to free the two prisoners. Now, all they had to do was wait for the right moment to put it into action.

"There don't seem to be any guards," Jound whispered, peering cautiously round the corner. He could see the Doctor and Tegan bound to stakes at the edge of the pit, could hear the Axaron growling in anticipation of its next meal, the sound reminding him of a tradition the people of the Last City had once had. Young boys had hunted wild Axarons as a test of manhood, pitting themselves against the fierce creatures in a test of strength. It had been thought the Axarons had died out as a result of this tradition, so where had Gark's come from? Jound did not know and he had no time to think about it; he, Marena and Talda had to get the Doctor and Tegan out of here.

"Come on!" Talda whispered, pulling out a knife and beckoning to the two Scouts. They followed her, keeping a constant look out for any sign of the Bandits, who were bound to be lying in wait somewhere. Talda knew from personal experience that Gark would not let this lie, that he do everything in his power to see that the Doctor and the others did not leave his territory alive. And, when he found out that she had been helping the intruders . . . She shuddered at the thought.

Luckily, no-one came to stop them when they approached the Doctor and Tegan, though the Axaron's growls did slightly increase in volume as if it sensed the presence of three more potential meals. Pressing her finger to her lips, Talda set to work cutting through the Doctor's bonds, a process which seemed to take a very long time, though it was probably no more than a few minutes before the last strand of rope was cut and the Doctor was free.

"Cut Tegan loose and let's get out of here," he said to Talda. There was no time for thanks right now; that would have to wait until they were clear of this place. Besides, he reminded himself, they still had to find what they had come for - the antidote which could save Adric.

Talda hurriedly did as the Doctor instructed, but, just as Tegan was freed, several Bandits appeared on the scene. And one of them was Gark himself, come to personally lower the Doctor and Tegan into the Axaron's pit. Instead, he found that the prisoners had been freed - and it was Talda who had done it with the help of the other two intruders, the ones his men had failed to recapture. But he would deal with that later; in the meantime . . .

"Traitor!" he roared, turning his wrath on Talda, the girl who had dared to defy him. "My own daughter has betrayed me!"

* * *

The Doctor and his party exchanged glances as they heard what Gark said. They had had no idea that Gark had a daughter, much less that Talda was that daughter. But it was clear that Gark was not going to spare Talda just because she was related to him. In his eyes, she had broken one the most fundamental "laws" of his territory; she had freed the prisoners he had personally condemned and, for that, she must die.

"You know the penalty, Talda," Gark said, without a hint of emotion in his voice. He turned to Erdus and Broath, who were standing nearby. "Take her! Throw her to the Axaron!" In response, the two Bandits advanced on the frightened girl, ready to seize hold of her and throw her into the nearby pit. It was the fate which awaited all those who went against Gark's whims, even his own daughter. The Doctor had encountered many such leaders on his travels, men (and women, he silently added, recalling Lady Adrasta) who would do anything to retain power. In their eyes, other people only existed to obey orders; any betrayal was rewarded with death.

Before Erdus and Broath could seize Talda, however, Jound rushed forward and pulled her away. "Quick!" he said to the Doctor, drawing his knife as he spoke. "Get out of here! I'll hold this lot off!"

"Jound!" Marena cried, unable to believe what he was doing. It was hopeless; Jound wouldn't stand a chance against all of Gark's men. He was signing up for a suicide mission.

"You can't!" Tegan pleaded, looking desperately at the Kylonian, willing him to change his mind.

But Jound knew the only chance the Doctor and the others had of getting out of here was for one of their party to stay and hold off Gark and his Bandits for as long as possible. He was well aware that he was outnumbered, but he had to try; if nothing else, it would keep Gark busy while the Doctor and the others searched for the antidote. "Just get out of here!" he ordered, his tone of voice indicating that he meant exactly what he had said.

Tegan was about to argue some more, but, before she could say anything else, the Doctor grabbed her by the arm and dragged her away. "We haven't got time for this," he told her, urging her forward. Reluctantly, Tegan obeyed and ran down the corridor with the Doctor, Marena and Talda. None of the four looked back as Jound launched himself at the Bandits in a desperate bid to hold them back while the Doctor and his party escaped; consequently, they did not see when Gark forced Jound to the edge of the Axaron's pit . . .

* * *

Jound's scream echoed through the corridors, before it was abruptly cut off. The Doctor needed no-one to tell him what had happened; he had encountered death often enough on his travels. Indeed, he recalled, only a few of his adventures had not involved at least one individual losing their life, but that didn't make the knowledge that yet another person had died after coming into contact with him any easier. And there would soon come a time when a death would affect him on a deeply personal level.

For now, though, he turned to look at Tegan, Marena and Talda, quickly noting the expressions on their faces. Though they had not seen Jound fall, all three females had been stunned into silence by his act of self-sacrifice; indeed, Marena, who had known Jound the longest out of the four of them, seemed to be in a state of shock too deep even for tears. Besides, there would be time enough to mourn Jound later; right now, they had to get out of these corridors and find somewhere to hide. With Jound gone, there was no-one to distract the Bandits.

Seeing a room with an open door, the Doctor ushered Tegan, Marena and Talda inside, before following them and slamming the door. Then, he looked around the room, noting that it seemed to be a laboratory, long disused and with equipment still stacked on shelves. If only Nyssa was here, she might be able to make use of this equipment, but she had stayed in the Last City with Adric. And it was on Adric's account that the Doctor and his party had ventured into Gark's territory, the only place where they could obtain the antidote the boy needed.

In the meantime, he pushed a laboratory bench up against the door to barricade it and keep the Bandits out, at least for a while. Unfortunately, barricading the door left them with another problem, as Tegan was quick to point out. "Great!" she said, rolling her eyes. "Have we shut the Bandits out or ourselves in?"

The Doctor was wondering the same thing, but he also knew that keeping the Bandits out might buy them enough time to make a plan. The antidote they had come for must be somewhere nearby, though he had no way of knowing precisely where. But, even if the Doctor and the others had had that information, it would have been little good to anyone, least of all Adric, if they were unable to get the antidote to him in time. Somehow, they would have to get out of here . . .

But, sometimes, fate leads someone to the answer they have been looking for purely by chance. The Doctor remembered another laboratory, the one on the Starliner, where he, Varsh, Adric and Varsh's friend, Keara, had taken refuge from the attacking Marshmen. Eventually, the Marshmen had broken in, but, when they tried to use oxygen cylinders as weapons, they accidentally released the gas inside. This made the air rich in oxygen, too rich for the Marshmen who, though they were highly adaptable creatures capable of adjusting to virtually any environment, could not adapt quickly enough. The Alzarians had later been able to exploit this weakness in order to drive the Marshmen, beings from which they themselves had evolved, out of the Starliner.

But it had been chance that led to the discovery of that weakness in the first place, just as it had been chance, in the form of Jo spilling a jar of powdered fungi, that led to the cure for a deadly illness caused by the slime from the maggots which had been mutated by the toxic waste from Global Chemicals. And, as it turned out, it would be chance which led to the solution to the Doctor's current troubles.

* * *

Finding their way into this laboratory had been the first factor, but there were a few pieces of the puzzle that had yet to reveal themselves. It was Tegan who discovered the first of these when, out of curiosity, she opened a book which lay on one of the tables, the pages creaking after being closed for so long. Reams of scientific formulae greeted her, formulae which might have meant something to Nyssa but was nothing but gobbledegook to Tegan. Science had never been her strongest subject at school and Tegan knew she would never have the same level of understanding as Nyssa. But, unlike with Adric and his maths, Tegan's relative lack of skill in this area had never caused friction between herself and Nyssa. Perhaps it was because Nyssa did not keep reminding people of her intellectual superiority in the way Adric often did.

As Tegan tossed the book aside, it chanced to fall open on a page which contained a particular word. And that word was "spores". It was the Doctor who saw the book fall open on this page, his Gallifreyan mind absorbing the contents in seconds. And it was the Doctor who, having glimpsed the word "spores" and recalled that it was on account of some particularly deadly spores that he and the others had come here in the first place, picked the book up for a closer look.

"Doctor," Tegan said, as the Doctor turned the page, "this is no time to be reading."

But the Doctor raised his hand, the one that wasn't holding the book, to shush her. "I'm not reading this for pleasure, Tegan," he said, deciding it would be wiser not to remind her of the fact that she had thrown this same book aside.

"Well, don't you think we should be concentrating on getting out of here?"

The Doctor ignored Tegan's question. "Listen to this," he said, beginning to read out loud:

_"The spores of the pods which I created and named after myself have already wiped out most of my people. Luckily, my fellow scientists and I have so far managed to avoid exposure and we are working to find both an antidote to this toxin and a means of wiping out the Jara Pods. I do not wish my legacy to be the destruction of the Kylonian race . . ."_

"So?" Tegan asked, not seeing the relevance of this brief passage. It was clearly an eye-witness account of what had happened on Kylon at the time of the Collapse, but it contained nothing she didn't already know, nothing that could help in the search for the antidote. "How's that supposed to help us?"

"I was just getting to that," the Doctor said, wishing for the umpteenth time that Tegan would learn a little patience. He cleared his throat and continued reading out loud. _"Obtaining samples of the Jara Pods and their spores has been difficult due to the risk of infection. However, I managed to obtain an immature plant, in which the toxin is not as potent, and have been exposing samples of it to various chemical compounds in the hope that one of them will trigger the reaction I am looking for."_ The Doctor skimmed through the next few paragraphs without reading them out loud, though their content would have made little sense to anyone without a scientific background anyway. "Ah! Here we are!" he said finally. _"The breakthrough has finally come. Today, I exposed samples of the plant to sylium. In every case, the samples withered and died within hours and it is my hope that sylium may also provide the antidote to the toxin contained in the spores. But I fear that, even if it does, it is too late for our people."_

* * *

The Doctor read a little further, before closing the book with a snap as realisation dawned on him. These were Jara's notes, containing details of how she had created the pods which bore her name, which meant this place must once have been her laboratory. Not only that, she had also been the one who discovered the antidote, the means of neutralising the Jara Pods and their toxic spores. Sylium, a mineral which resembled purple chalk, had caused a reaction in the Jara Pods, killing them, but it had also neutralised the effects of the toxin in the spores. This was the answer they had been looking for.

"Sylium," the Doctor muttered, turning to a nearby cupboard and opening the door to peer inside. Failing to find what he had been hoping to find, he turned to Tegan, Marena and Talda. "Don't just stand there! Help me look. We want a chalky, light purple mineral. I just hope there's some here," he added under his breath. If there wasn't . . . But he shook his head as if to dismiss even the thought of it.

Though Tegan and Talda were quick to follow the Doctor's instructions, Marena stayed where she was, seemingly lost in thought. But the Doctor was quick to notice this. "Look," he said, continuing his search for the sylium as he spoke. "You can mourn Jound later - right now, we need your help. Any luck?" he asked Tegan and Talda.

"No," replied Tegan. "What is this sylium anyway?"

"Something which isn't found in your galaxy," the Doctor replied. And, he guessed, it wasn't a mineral which occured naturally on Kylon either, though he knew of a few planets where it was fairly common. Perhaps, before the Collapse, the Kylonians had been sending mining expeditions to a planet where sylium was plentiful. But, after that, the supply had dried up and the sylium that was already on Kylon had been used to eliminate the Jara Pods and neutralise the effects of their spores. Except, a few of the pods had been overlooked, as the Doctor knew only too well. All he could do now was hope there was still some sylium in this laboratory and that it would be enough to save Adric.

Marena sighed and went to help Tegan search one of the cupboards. If nothing else, she could make sure that Jound's sacrifice hadn't been in vain. And the best way to do that was by finding the antidote they had come for.

* * *

Presently, Talda reached into one of the cupboards and pulled out a small jar containing a soft purple mineral. There was a faded label on the jar, but, since Talda couldn't read, it didn't mean anything to her. Nonetheless, she remembered that the Doctor had told them to look for a mineral that was both purple in colour and resembled chalk and this looked like the best candidate so far. She hurried over to the Doctor and showed him. "Is this what you wanted?"

The Doctor took the jar and turned it around to look at the label. There was a single word written on the label - _Sylium_ - along with a series of numbers, though it was impossible to tell if they refered to the date the sample was taken or were some kind of catalogue number. "Well, that's one problem solved," he said, pocketing the jar. "Now, we just have to get this back to the Last City." He walked over to the bench he had used to barricade the door and pushed it aside. But, when he opened the door, he found Gark's henchmen, Erdus, Orgom and Broath, waiting outside.

"Back!" he shouted to Tegan, Marena and Talda, who had been about to follow him outside. He quickly slammed the door and replaced the makeshift barricade, but he knew it was already too late, that the three Bandits now knew where the fugitives had been hiding and would soon be back with reinforcements. He sighed. "This is not one of my better days."


	8. Chapter 8

****

Chapter Eight

Though the Doctor had managed to obtain the antidote, he knew it would do Adric little good unless it could be delivered to him in time. And the odds of that happening with Gark and his men outside seemed more remote than the chances of the Daleks giving up on their ambition to conquer the Universe. Erdus, Orgom and Broath had quickly returned with reinforcements, several of Gark's Bandits who were now throwing everything into breaking down the laboratory door. And from the way the barricade was shifting under the pressure, it looked like they were succeeding.

And then there was the fate Gark had lined up for the fugitives once they were caught, being fed to the Axaron. This had already been Jound's fate, though his companions had fortunately been spared the sight of the creature as it took the Kylonian's life. Nonetheless, it had been one more life lost during the course of one of the Doctor's adventures. And, to make matters worse, it looked as though Jound's sacrifice would be in vain; though it had given the Doctor and the others the time they needed to find the antidote, they still had to get it back to the Last City, a task which was easier said than done when they were holed up in this laboratory.

The Doctor sighed. No matter where he went in time and space, trouble always seemed to follow him - either that or he and whoever was in the TARDIS with him landed right in the middle of some crisis or other. Not always, though. The Doctor recalled the five relatively uneventful months he and his granddaughter, Susan, had spent in 1960s London - until the curiosity of two of Susan's teachers at the local school she had insisted on attending against his better judgement led them into the TARDIS. To prevent the secret of his and Susan's origins from being exposed, the Doctor had hastily set the TARDIS in motion and . . .

Glancing at the wall directly opposite him, the Doctor suddenly noticed a ventilation shaft set into the wall. He hurried over to examine the opening; it was covered with a wire grille, but, once that was removed, an adult humanoid should be able to fit through without too much difficulty. Of course, they would have to trust to luck that the shaft didn't narrow further on or that there were no unpleasent surprises awaiting anyone who ventured inside, but the presence of the shaft meant there was a chance of escape. He turned to Tegan, Marena and Talda, who were standing together a short distance away. "Could you come over here?"

Puzzled, the three females obeyed and soon stood looking at the vent. Finally, Tegan turned to the Doctor and gave him one of her famous looks. "You don't seriously expect us to crawl through there?" she asked, rolling her eyes. For one thing, she wasn't dressed for it; air hostess uniforms were not designed with crawling through ventilation shafts in mind. Tegan recalled how Nyssa had changed the chiffon skirt she had been wearing when they first met for a smart pair of trousers before they began the trek to Castrovalva. Or, rather, where Castrovalva was supposed to be according the false information the Master had had Adric enter into the TARDIS's databanks. But Tegan, expecting to be going straight home after their adventure, hadn't bothered to change.

"It's that or stay here and wait for Gark's men to catch you," the Doctor pointed out. He then turned to Marena. "Help me get this grille off."

* * *

Between them, the Doctor and Marena lifted the grille covering the vent, exposing the opening the Doctor hoped might provide an escape route. Then, the Doctor pulled a small torch out of his pocket and shone it into the shaft, before turning back to the others. "Looks all clear, but let me go first just in case."

"Whatever you say, Doc," Tegan muttered under her breath. She hoped they wouldn't encounter anything nasty in the shaft, but, knowing the Doctor, that couldn't be guaranteed. However, as the Doctor had said, it was a choice between crawling through a shaft which could contain unknown dangers and the very real threat of being caught by Gark and fed to the Axaron. She decided the former was the - she hesitated to use the word "better" under these circumstances - less bad option.

The Doctor climbed into the shaft, holding the torch in his hand. Marena went next, followed by Talda, then Tegan. The human woman was only just in time; seconds after she had entered the vent, the makeshift barricade which the Doctor had pushed against the door shifted as Gark's men finally succeeded in breaking in. The Bandits gazed round the room, surprised to see no sign of the fugitives.

"Where'd they go?" asked Orgom.

"Must've vanished into thin air," suggested Broath, who, seconds later, found himself in the iron grip of Gark.

"Nothing vanishes into thin air!" Gark retorted, for once restraining the urge to threaten Broath with being fed to the Axaron. For one thing, they had to catch the Doctor and the other fugitives so that he could make examples of them. Especially Talda, he vowed to himself; the girl may have been his daughter, but she had betrayed him. She had gone soft, had freed the prisoners he had planned to feed to the Axaron. And no-one was allowed to cross Gark and live, not even his own daughter.

He walked over to the vent, which had been left open when the Doctor and the others made their escape. "And I think I know how they got out," he added, looking at his men with a meaningful expression on his face.

The Bandits looked at Gark incredulously. Then one of them, who was slightly braver (or more foolish) than his fellows, spoke up. "You mean we gotta crawl through there?" In common with all the Bandits, this man had not received even the most rudimentary education, but he could tell there was no way all of those in the laboratory were going to fit into that shaft.

"Of course not, fool," Gark replied. "That vent comes out in the jungle, right?"

"Right!" echoed the Bandits, obediently agreeing with their unpredictable leader.

"So all we have to is go to where it comes out and set up an ambush." Gark turned to a nearby Bandit. "You! Fetch the Axaron! It shall sniff out our quarry for us . . ."

* * *

So far, the Doctor and his party had not encountered any problems as they crawled through the shaft, the Doctor relying on his highly developed sense of direction to lead them to the exit. Experience told him that there was every risk that something nasty could be waiting for them when they got out, but the only other escape route meant running the gauntlet of Gark and his men again. And, with Adric's life hanging in the balance, they could not afford to waste time trying to evade their captors. They had the antidote; now, all they had to do was get back to the Last City.

As Tegan crawled along, thinking longingly of fresh air and being able to stand up straight, a question occured to her. "Talda," she said to the Kylonian girl crawling in front of her, "is Gark really your dad?"

Talda looked round, a puzzled expression on her face. "What does "dad" mean?"

Tegan paused, wondering how to answer. The Doctor had told her that the TARDIS's telepathic circuits automatically translated unfamiliar languages into the listener's native tongue; that was how she and the rest of the TARDIS crew were able to understand what each other was saying, even though they all came from different planets. But even the TARDIS could not translate words into a language which contained no direct translation. Tegan recalled that Adric, for all his self-proclaimed superior intelligence, sometimes found it difficult to understand certain Earth expressions, suggesting that they didn't translate into Alzarian very well. And, if Talda's question was anything to go by, the Kylonian language contained no word for "dad".

"It means "father"," Tegan said finally, thinking to herself that she would not wish Gark as a father on anyone. She thought of her own father and of Nyssa's; she'd never actually met the latter (unless she counted her encounter with the Master, who had killed Nyssa's father and taken over his body) but Nyssa had told her a little about him, enough for her to know he had been a wise and compassionate man. No wonder Nyssa hated the Master so much. Losing her father must have been bad enough, but knowing a rogue Time Lord had hijacked his body must be even worse.

"Then, yes," Talda replied. But, though Tegan tried to question her further, she had no wish to discuss Gark with anyone. She had no love for the man, not least because she found many of his methods distasteful. From an early age, she had seen Gark condemn intruders and even some of their own people to death, usually by being fed to the Axaron, though beheading was another favourite method. It always made her feel physically sick, but she had never dared defy her father and free those he had condemned - until now. She did not know what had prompted her to free the Doctor and his party, but the consequences of doing so had been severe. Gark had condemned her, his own daughter, to die along with the intruders.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was trying to work out what to do about Talda. He knew what would happen to her if he left her with Gark and his Bandits, but his conscience would not allow him to leave anyone to their fate if it could be avoided. As a Time Lord, he was supposed to avoid becoming involved in the affairs of other peoples and planets, but he'd already broken that law more times than he could count. But he'd always reasoned that, as long as he stayed within the Laws of Time and didn't try to change things he knew weren't supposed to change, his involvement (some of the more hard-line factions among the Time Lords would have said "meddling" was a better word) could be justified.

But what _could_ he do to save Talda from her tyrannical father? Only two possible solutions suggested themselves: taking her back to the Last City and asking that she be given sanctuary or inviting her to join the TARDIS crew. The latter would, since the Kylonians no longer had space travel, put her safely out of Gark's reach. But, right now, the Doctor's main priority was to escape from here and hope they arrived back at the Last City in time to save Adric; any decisions about Talda's future would have to wait.

* * *

Meanwhile, Gark and several hand-picked Bandits had made their way to the point where the vent the fugitives were using (or trying to use) as an escape route emerged. It was hidden behind dense jungle foliage, making it pretty much impossible to detect unless you knew it was there. But Gark was an experienced tracker and knew this was the perfect place for an ambush. He ordered Orgom and Erdus to keep watch for the fugitives, while the rest of the Bandits spread out around the immediate vicinity. Finally, he turned to the man he had "volunteered" to take charge of the Axaron, a black-furred creature that looked like a cross between a panther and a wolf, with a little bear thrown in for good measure. At least that was how an Earthling would have described it, but panthers, wolves and bears did not exist on Kylon.

"Keep a tight hold on that thing," he warned. "I don't want it getting loose until I give the signal."

The Axaron was snarling, working itself up into a frenzy at the thought of being able to hunt in its natural habitat once more. Ever since several of the Bandits had captured it four years earlier, it had been imprisoned in a pit and fed on condemned criminals. It had always devoured its victims eagerly, but it was too easy to kill someone who had no means of escaping their fate. The Axaron missed the thrill of the chase and, for the past four years, its frustration had been steadily increasing. Now, only the powerful grip of one of Gark's strongest men kept it from breaking loose and going off to hunt in the jungle.

"Y - yes, Gark!" the Bandit stammered, knowing that, if he said anything else, he would soon find himself on the Axaron's menu.

A short distance away, two more Bandits had spotted something unusual. A large blue box stood among the trees in a spot where there had been no blue boxes the previous day. What was more, this box didn't look as though it belonged on Kylon; the Bandits had amassed a huge collection of relics from before the Collapse, even though they had no idea what most of them were, but none of them had ever seen anything like this box before. So where had it come from?

"'Ere, Golok," one of the two Bandits said to his companions. "What's that box thing?"

Golok, a bald man who had lost an eye in a fight some time ago, shrugged. "Dunno. D'you think it could be valuable, Treeb?"

Treeb was about to reply when Gark appeared behind him. "Never mind what the box is. We've got more important things to worry about," he said shortly. "Now take your positions." Even so, he could not help feeling curious about the blue box himself; he too had no idea where it came from, but he meant to find out. Just as soon as he had dealt with the fugitives . . .

But he had no idea that the fugitives and the box were connected, that, due a technology few who did not come from its planet of origin understood, it was much bigger inside than it was outside, that it was a machine capable of travelling in space and time. As far as he was concerned, it was just a strange blue box.

* * *

Reaching the end of the shaft, the Doctor pushed aside the vines covering the exit and crawled out.

The first thing he noticed was that night had fallen, the cries of nocturnal animals filling the jungle, though he had no means of telling exactly how long he and the others had been imprisoned. But he knew it hadn't been more than a few hours, which meant there was still a chance that he and the others might make it back to the Last City in time. Provided, of course, that they could get safely through the Kylonian jungle and managed to avoid Gark and his men. He patted the pocket in which he had placed both the jar of sylium and Jara's notebook, then turned to the shaft as Marena, Talda and Tegan emerged from it.

Tegan groaned as she emerged into the Kylonian jungle, vowing to herself that there was no way she was crawling down a ventilation shaft again. She had thought the tunnel was going to go on forever, that they were never going to reach the exit. Indeed, at one point during the seemingly endless crawl, she had mentioned this to the Doctor, whose only response had been to tell her that she could always go back and wait for Gark and his men. "Thanks for the sympathy, Doctor," she had muttered to herself. But, unless she crawled backwards, she wouldn't have been able to go back even if she'd wanted to; the shaft was too narrow to allow anyone inside it to turn around.

But, as she straightened up, she spotted something a short distance away, something which had the outward appearance of a police box from 20th Century Earth. And, since police boxes were not, as a rule, found on the planet Kylon, she knew there was only one thing it could be. "Doctor, look!" she called, pointing in the direction of the box.

Following her finger with his eyes, the Doctor saw the familiar blue shape of the TARDIS, easily recognisible because there was nothing else on Kylon that looked like this. That, he had to admit, was one of the advantages of not having a properly functioning Chameleon Circuit; it made it easier to find the TARDIS in a hurry. Normally, a TARDIS could change its outward appearance to blend in with its surroundings, so that if, for example, it landed in the Arctic, it might take on the form of an igloo. But, shortly after the Doctor left 1960s London with Susan and her teachers, Ian and Barbara, something had gone wrong with his TARDIS's Chameleon Circuit and the space-time machine had been stuck in the form of a police box ever since. The Doctor had been trying to fix the Chameleon Circuit when he and Tegan first met, but, thanks to an act of sabotage by the Master, he had never finished the task.

Nonetheless, the discovery that the shaft came out so close to where the TARDIS had materialised was a stroke of luck; it meant the chances of getting back to the Last City in time to save Adric had increased considerably. It was only recently that the Doctor had mastered the art of making what he termed "short hops", moving the TARDIS a short distance without travelling backwards or forwards in time. But it meant that, unless something went wrong, there was a good chance that he and the others would arrive in the Last City in a matter of minutes. Telling Tegan, Marena and Talda to follow him, he stepped in the direction of the TARDIS.

And immediately found himself surrounded by Bandits.


	9. Chapter 9

****

Chapter Nine

Just when it had seemed there was a chance of getting back to the Last City in time, the Doctor and his party found their path to the TARDIS blocked. Gark and his men must have been lying in wait for them - that much was obvious. But what wasn't obvious was how the four of them were going to get to the TARDIS with several Bandits barring the way. Still, at least the Bandits had ignored the TARDIS so far and that meant they probably didn't realise what it was.

That, however, did not alter the fact that they were directly in the path the Doctor and his party had to take in order to reach the space-time machine. And, with Adric's life hanging in the balance, the Doctor could ill afford to waste time right now. Not that this mattered to Gark; as far as he was concerned, the Doctor, Tegan and Marena had entered his territory uninvited, a crime for which there was only one penalty. As for Talda, she had betrayed him and that carried the same penalty.

"So," he said, swaggering up to the Doctor, who was keeping a close eye on a black-furred animal which was being restrained by one of the Bandits. "You thought you could get away, did you? Well, I know my territory like the back of my hand. And I know where all the passageways lead." He turned in the direction of the Bandit who was restraining the creature, now struggling vigorously to break free and launch itself at the nearest source of fresh meat, baring razor sharp fangs. "And it looks like the Axaron is getting hungry . . ." he added.

The Doctor found himself studying the creature closely. So this was what the Axaron looked like? Well, it certainly looked as though it could do some serious damage with those fangs . . . The Doctor felt his hearts skip their respective beats as he recalled how Jound had fallen to this creature and tried not to think about precisely how the Axaron killed its prey. There had to be some means of getting past the creature. But how? The sonic screwdriver was no longer an option; the Terileptils had seen to that. The Doctor racked his brains, frowning as he considered what other tricks he might try.

But, before the Doctor could come up with anything that might have at least an outside chance of success, Gark turned to the man restraining the Axaron. "Set it loose," he ordered, watching as the man let go of the creature's lead. Soon, Gark told himself, the Axaron would rid him of these intruders once and for all. No-one entered his territory uninvited and got away with it . . .

Gark's thoughts were cut off abruptly by a terrified scream, but it did not come from one of the Doctor's party. It came from the Bandit called Treeb; the Axaron, true to its nature, had turned on the nearest source of prey and sunk its fangs into the man's throat. Treeb was silenced within moments, but it was the distraction the Doctor and the others needed.

"Into the TARDIS!" the Doctor ordered Tegan, Marena and Talda. It was lucky for him that the Axaron had turned on the Bandits, but he knew there was no time to lose. Not only did they have to make their escape while Gark and his men were distracted by the Axaron, they had to get back to the Last City as quickly as possible.

* * *

Tegan had been with the Doctor long enough to be used to the fact that the TARDIS was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, even if she would never quite get her head round exactly how that worked. But, for Marena and Talda, the space-time machine was something outside their realms of experience. Both Kylonians gaped with amazement as they entered and saw the vast Console Room and its central column. And, as often happened when someone entered the TARDIS for the first time, they found their gaze drawn towards the ceiling, as if in a bid to confirm that it was there. For several seconds, they were rendered completely speechless, gazing in stunned silence at the vast space around them, a space which logic said could not possibly fit into the blue box they had just entered.

"But how . . .?" Marena said, finding her voice.

The Doctor held up his hand to shush her, then quickly secured the doors. That done, he quickly entered the co-ordinates for the Last City and prepared to dematerialise, willing the TARDIS to behave itself for once and not go rematerialising wherever and whenever it felt like. With Adric's life at stake, he could not afford any mistakes now. "Don't fail me now, old girl," he muttered as, holding one hand behind his back with the index fingers crossed, he pressed the dematerialisation switch.

Tegan, standing nearby with Marena and Talda smiled to herself; she had heard the Doctor refer to the TARDIS as though it was female before. She had a feeling it was more than just a case of men assigning feminine traits to their motors (though, unknown to her, the Doctor had once owned a car which he'd nicknamed Bessie) but she couldn't help wondering how you could tell if a TARDIS was male or female. After all, you could hardly . . . But she decided that was straying into the realms of "too much information".

At that moment, the TARDIS's engines roared into life and a distinctive thrumming sound filled the Console Room, as the column at the centre of the console began to move up and down.

* * *

Gark and his men had seen the Doctor and his party enter the TARDIS, but, as the Doctor had hoped, they had been too distracted by the Axaron to do anything about it. Though they had captured the creature four years ago, they had never managed to tame it; indeed, Gark had often used its untamed nature to his advantage, threatening to throw anyone who crossed him into the pit where the Axaron was kept. The arrangement had worked out reasonably well so far, but now the Axaron was out of its pit - and it was turning on the men who had imprisoned it.

"Get that thing under control!" Gark yelled at a Bandit standing nearby.

Relunctantly, but not daring to disobey his unpredictable leader, the man Gark had addressed moved towards the Axaron. However, he was barely within touching distance of the creature before it sprang at him and wrestled him to the ground. Within moments, it had finished him off. Seeing this, Orgom and Broath raised their guns in a bid to stop the Axaron before it attacked any more of their party; unfortunately, neither Bandit had any idea how to handle a gun properly and, even if they had, their guns were energy weapons which had not been charged since before the Collapse. Seconds later, Orgom became the third fatality of the Axaron's terrifying bloodlust.

Flinging down his useless gun, Broath tried to make a run for it. It was the worst thing he could have done; the Axaron's instinct was to chase after anything that moved, an instinct which had been continually thwarted during the time it was imprisoned. Now, however, it was free once more, free to hunt and kill as it was supposed to. And hunt and kill it did; like a fox let loose in a chicken coop on Earth, it attacked without mercy, swiftly adding Broath to the list of the dead. Several Bandits tried in vain to fight back, only to suffer the same fate as their comrades. The rest attempted to flee while the Axaron was distracted, heedless of the fact that they were running right into the path of the Quiloks that had chased the Doctor and his companions.

Gark knew he was beaten. The Axaron had been a useful tool for keeping his men in order, not to mention dealing with intruders, but it was turning on its captors, attacking those who had imprisoned it. It took an exceptionally strong man to restrain the creature and the strongest Bandit in the vicinity had just fled into the trees. And, though Gark would have prefered to keep the Axaron alive, even he knew there was no chance of that, not after it had killed several of his best men without being ordered to do so. In a split second, he decided that, if the Axaron was going to kill him, he would take it down with him.

As the Axaron came charging towards him, Gark pulled out his knife and launched himself at the creature.

* * *

No-one witnessed the moment when Gark fell with the Axaron's jaws around his throat, thrusting his knife into the creature's belly with the last of his strength. And even a creature as fierce as the Axaron could not withstand such a wound; within moments, it lay dead on the floor of the Kylonian jungle.

For the moment, however, the Doctor had more important things to worry about than the fate of Gark and his men. Leaving Tegan, Marena and Talda in the Console Room, he had hurried to the TARDIS's main laboratory where he was now using a pestle and mortar to crush the sylium he had recovered from Jara's laboratory into powder. According to Jara's notes, the sylium had to be crushed before being dissolved in water, the resulting solution being the only means of curing someone who had inhaled the spores of the Jara Pods. The Doctor thought briefly of what he had read in Jara's notebook. It appeared that she had not meant to cause any harm; indeed, unlike some scientists he had come across, she had tried to do something to rectify her mistakes by finding the means of destroying the pods she had created and a cure for the toxin contained in their spores. But how the pods the Doctor and his companions had encountered had escaped destruction would forever remain a mystery.

Just for a moment, the Doctor considered taking the TARDIS back in time to visit Kylon during Jara's time. It would be interesting to meet her, a woman who, judging by her notes, had been one of her people's top scientists. On second thoughts, he decided it would be better not to, certainly not to visit her before the Jara Pods were created; the Laws of Time meant he would be unable to warn her of the danger her work posed to her people. All he could do was try to make sure Adric did not suffer the same fate as many of the Kylonians who had inhaled the spores from the pods.

That and rid Kylon of the Jara Pods once and for all. The Doctor already knew that sylium did not occur naturally on this planet and that he was currently using the last of the sylium which had been imported to Kylon before the Collapse. But he also knew of several planets where that particular mineral was commonplace; of these, Nava V, a small planet in the Isop Galaxy, seemed the best bet, being uninhabited and too remote to be of much interest to colonists from other worlds.

For now, though, the Doctor's main concern was saving Adric, the boy he had come to love as a somewhat wayward son. Adric could be very wilful at times, but, despite all the arguments that erupted between them, he and the Doctor were close friends. The Doctor had promised not to let anything happen to Adric and he was determined to keep that promise.

* * *

As the night wore on, Adric's condition had declined rapidly. Even with his recuperative powers, he was unable to fight off the toxin in the spores he had inhaled and, with every passing hour, the poison tightened its grip on his system. Dorika was doing everything she could to help him hang on until the Doctor and the others returned, but her hope was fading as rapidly as the young Alzarian. Sighing, she reached out and touched his forehead, recalling another youth who had also fallen victim to the spores. A party had gone in search of the antidote then as well, but none of them had returned, their bodies being found later on the border with Bandit territory.

"How is he?"

Dorika looked up to see Kerez silhouetted in the doorway. It was too dark for her to see his expression, but she guessed he must be thinking of the son he had lost to the spores; had he lived, Pergon would have been fully adult by now . . . "Not good," she said with a sigh. "Unless the Doctor returns soon . . ." She looked down at Adric, who lay barely conscious as the poison continued to sap his strength, and shook her head.

"You want me to wake Nyssa?"

Kerez's question reminded Dorika that she had promised Nyssa to see that she was woken if there was any change in Adric's condition. At the same time, Dorika recalled how the young Traken had kept constant vigil beside the boy, only leaving his side because Dorika had insisted that she get some rest. And Adric had seemed reassured by Nyssa's presence as well. Clearly, Dorika thought to herself, the two teenagers were very close; maybe it would be best if Nyssa was allowed to spend time with Adric, especially when the chances of help arriving in time were looking increasingly slim. "Yes," Dorika said, looking down at Adric once more. "You do that."

* * *

Kerez left the room, returning moments later with Nyssa close behind him. The second she entered the room, she hurried straight to Adric's side and fell to her knees, taking his hand in hers. In the dim light of the oil lamp which provided the only illumination, she could not see him clearly, but she could tell his condition had deteriorated since she had left him. Tears pricked her eyes as she remembered how, as a young girl on the verge of adolescence, she had been summoned to her mother's death bed. Was she now about to face the same ordeal with one of her closest friends? And how would Adric have felt if their roles had been reversed and she was the one who had been poisoned?

She did not know for sure, but she suspected it would have been hard for the boy. Like her, he was the last surviving member of his family, though the other members of his race still survived, albeit in another universe. In addition, Adric had never known the close friendship of another young person, certainly not one whose intelligence compared to his own, until he had met Nyssa. From what he'd told her, the other Alzarians in his age group had had little time for him; he had even been estranged from his own brother for a time. She tightened her grip on his hand, silently willing him to hang on just a little longer.

Sensing that Nyssa needed to be alone with Adric at this time, Kerez and Dorika withdrew, though Dorika remained just outside the room. She knew that, unless the Doctor and the others returned soon with the antidote, Adric did not have long and she wanted to be ready to comfort Nyssa when the time came.

Just then, however, a sound like nothing she had heard before filled the corridor, a sound she could hardly even describe. Dorika could not work what was making this cacophony; there had been no functioning machines on Kylon in living memory and nothing in nature could produce noise at this volume. Then, as the noise (whatever it was) continued, something began to materialise as if out of thin air: a large blue object, possibly a cabinet of some sort, with a light flashing on the top.

Seconds after the "cabinet" appeared, the door opened and the Doctor emerged, followed by Tegan, Marena and a teenaged girl Dorika had never seen before. The girl was dressed in the rough clothing worn by Gark's Bandits and Dorika wondered what she was doing here in the Last City. Then, she remembered that Jound had also been part of the group who ventured into Gark's territory in search of the antidote. So why hadn't he returned with the rest of the party? "Doctor," Dorika said as the Doctor closed the door to the "cabinet", "where's Jound? And who is this girl?" she added, pointing to Talda.

"Jound's dead," the Doctor said shortly, silently adding that he would explain about Talda later. Right now, he had more important things to do.

* * *

Nyssa had also heard the noise out in the corridor, but, unlike Kerez and Dorika, she knew what it was; there was no mistaking the sound of the TARDIS materialising once you'd heard it. Part of her wanted to run out into the corridor and see for herself, but she then looked down at Adric, who gave no sign that he had heard anything, and decided to stay where she was. "Adric," she whispered, leaning closer to him, "it's going to be all right. The Doctor's back and . . ." She broke off as the Doctor hurried into the room, with Tegan close behind him, Marena and Talda having elected to wait out in the corridor.

"How is he?" the Doctor asked as he drew level with the bed on which Adric lay with his eyes closed. It was a rhetorical question, but Nyssa replied anyway.

"Still alive," she said, her gaze returning to Adric as the Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a phial containing a purple liquid, the antidote he had fought so hard to obtain.

"Well, if we're going to keep him that way . . ." The Doctor knelt beside Adric and pulled out the stopper on the phial. "Nyssa, can you lift his head for me?" he asked. As Nyssa did as she had been instructed, the Doctor pressed the phial containing the antidote against Adric's lips, hoping against hope that the boy wasn't too far gone. "Come on, Adric," the Doctor urged. "Open your mouth . . ." The exact same words he would say to Peri at the end of his current incarnation as he fought to administer the antidote to the poison they had both been exposed to, an act which would mean his only hope of survival was to regenerate.

Right now, however, the Doctor's attention was focused on Adric, willing the recalcitrant boy to do as he was told for once and take the antidote. Seconds which felt like hours passed, before Adric's lips slowly parted, allowing the Doctor to pour a small amount of the sylium solution into his mouth. As the Doctor administered the rest of the antidote, Nyssa watched her friend anxiously, waiting for a sign that he was starting to come round. At the same time, Tegan, standing a short distance away, clasped her hands together as if in prayer, willing Adric to wake up. If he didn't, she didn't know if she would ever forgive herself; after all, it was partly her fault he had been poisoned in the first place.

Just then, however, Adric's eyelids flickered and he opened his eyes to find himself lying on a low bed, with the Doctor and Nyssa kneeling on either side of him. He could not see Tegan from where he was lying, but he knew she must be somewhere nearby. "What . . . happened?" he asked, still groggy from the effects of the spores. The last thing he remembered was that he and the rest of the TARDIS crew had been walking through the jungle when he suddenly started feeling dizzy.

"You were poisoned," Nyssa told him. "Those spores you inhaled made you ill, but you're going to be all right."

In response, Adric gave her one of his impish smiles and, though they could hardly see each other in the light of the oil lamp, Nyssa smiled back. Then, as Tegan moved to join the two young humanoids, the Doctor stepped out into the corridor to deliver the good news to those waiting outside.

* * *

Thanks to his Alzarian physiology, it took Adric only a few hours to recover completely from the effects of the poison. The Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa were well aware that he was from a race which healed in far less time than it took most other races, but the Kylonians thought it was, even with the sylium, nothing short of a miracle that someone who had inhaled such a deadly toxin should be up and about within hours of receiving the antidote. When Dorika commented on this, Adric, his badge pinned to his shirt once more, shrugged and told her the same thing would happen with any Alzarian.

"It's something we're born with," he explained. "Our bodies repair themselves faster than yours. For instance . . ." He paused to think of an example, then continued. "Once, Tylos - one of my brother's friends - fell out of a tree and broke his arm. He had to wear a splint for the rest of the day, but his arm was completely healed by the next morning."

Tegan, hearing what Adric said, recalled how her cousin, Colin, had also broken his arm falling out of a tree. But, whereas Tylos had been an Alzarian and was therefore able to recover from such an injury literally overnight, Colin was human. He had spent the next few weeks with his arm in plaster, quite a contrast with simply having it immobilised in a splint for several hours. Of course, if Alzarian bones mended as quickly as Adric said, it was hardly worth putting them in plaster. In any case, Tegan was just relieved that the Doctor and his party had arrived back in the Last City in time and that the antidote had worked. She had no way of knowing the terrible fate which lay in store for the boy whose life they had saved.

Just then, the Doctor came in with Nyssa close behind him. "Well, let's go," he said, drawing level with Tegan and Adric. In response, they pulled themselves to their feet, said their goodbyes to Dorika and followed their two fellow time-travellers to the corridor where the TARDIS had materialised.

* * *

As the Doctor secured the TARDIS's doors, a question occured to Tegan. "Doctor," she said, moving to join Nyssa at the console, "what happened to Gark's men?"

The Doctor looked across at Tegan and Nyssa; Adric had gone to the TARDIS's library and would doubtless have his nose buried in some book or other on mathematical theory. "Some Scouts from the Last City found their bodies," he replied. "Seems that Axaron of Gark's turned on them and killed them all; they found its body on top of Gark's. In any case, that only leaves one more job to do . . ."

He pressed the dematerialisation switch and the TARDIS was soon on its way to the planet Nava V.


	10. Epilogue

****

Epilogue

When he and his companions returned to Kylon, the Doctor managed to get the TARDIS to materialise right in the middle of the Last City's central square. The scanner screen showed groups of Kylonians going about their business, apparently too preoccupied with their own affairs to bother about the TARDIS, although a few did cast curious glances in the direction of the strange blue box which had materialised in their midst.

The Doctor switched off the scanner and turned to Tegan. "Right, we're there," he told her. "Get Nyssa and Adric, will you?"

"Right." Tegan hurried off to the laboratory, where Nyssa and Adric had been processing the sylium the TARDIS crew had collected on Nava V. Their visit to the small planet had, for once, been uneventful, aside from the time Adric, in a moment of inattention, missed his footing and ended up dangling over the edge of a cliff. The Doctor had had to pull the boy to safety. Afterwards, he had given Adric a scolding for not watching where he was going, to which Adric had responded with his usual complaints about being treated like a child. Luckily, Nyssa had intervened before another shouting match could erupt between the two male humanoids. Tegan smiled at the memory as she returned to the Console Room with Nyssa and Adric following her, each of them carrying a bag containing the sylium Nyssa and Adric had been processing.

"This stuff is heavy," Adric muttered as the three of them entered the Console Room.

"This "stuff", as you call it, saved your life," Tegan reminded him, privately adding that he was right about it being heavy. Finding the small amount of sylium needed to revive Adric was one thing, but they needed much more than that if they were to rid Kylon of the Jara Pods.

Adric looked as though he was about to say something in reply, but, before he could do so, the Doctor opened the doors to the TARDIS and told his companions to follow him. Several Kylonians stared in amazement at the sight of four people, three of them carrying large transparent bags, emerging from the blue box. But the Doctor was used to this kind of reaction and told his companions to ignore the stares and follow him.

They met two Scouts outside Kerez's house: Idral and a female Scout whose name they did not know. The second she saw them, she held up her hand to block their way, prompting a sigh of exasperation from the Doctor. He had hoped they would meet Marena, but she was clearly not available at present.

"It's all right," Idral told his companion. "I know these people; they were here six months ago."

"Six months?" Tegan echoed, turning to the Doctor.

"Yes, well I wanted to be sure the Jara Pods would be dormant when we returned," he told her. To that end, he had programmed the TARDIS to return to Kylon a few months after he and his companions left for Nava V; he had studied Jara's notes extensively and knew the pods were only dangerous when they were spreading their spores. Then, drawing himself up to his full height, he turned to the two Scouts. "Take us to Kerez," he said, his tone, though mild-mannered, making it clear that they had better do as he said.

Within minutes, the Doctor and his companions were standing before Kerez, showing him the contents of the bags. "Sylium," the Doctor explained, holding up a small amount of the chalky mineral. Then, seeing the puzzled look on Kerez's face, he hurried on. "It's the same stuff that was in the antidote we gave to Adric." He gestured towards the boy, who was standing with Tegan and Nyssa, looking somewhat bored with all the talk that was currently going on. Kerez looked from the Doctor to Adric, then back again, recalling the events of six months earlier and wondering why the Doctor had returned with more sylium when it wasn't needed any more. He put this question to the Doctor, who responded by handing him Jara's notebook.

"The answer's in there if you'd care to read it," he said, hoping Kerez was prepared to accept help with getting rid of the Jara Pods. The Doctor may have had a habit of becoming involved in the affairs of other planets, but he knew not to push it too far. Still, Kerez had lost his son because of the pods and their spores and had seen another boy come close to suffering the same fate, which meant he should be keen to see the pods destroyed.

After a brief discussion, Kerez agreed to accept the Doctor's offer of help. The Jara Pods had long been a menace to the people of the Last City, so maybe it was time they were rid of them once and for all. And the only way they could do that was to use the sylium the Doctor and his companions had brought back with them. "Very well, Doctor," he said. "Leave the sylium with me and I'll have some of my Scouts use it on the pods." After that, no-one would ever have to worry about inhaling the deadly spores again.

"By the way," the Doctor said next, "how's Talda?"

"She's fine," Kerez replied. "I've adopted her and Marena's training her to become a Scout." As for the rest of the Bandits, he went on to explain that they had dispersed after the death of their leader, leaving the abandoned laboratory which had been their den deserted. The people of the Last City had no use for any of the equipment; they were keen not to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. So they had left everything where it was and barred the entrance to keep anyone from entering.

The Doctor was tempted to argue that science, when used for the right reasons, could be beneficial. But he chose not to, deciding that, if the Kylonians were content to live in a Level Two civilization, they were welcome to do so. Instead, he turned to Tegan. "Ready to go?" he asked her. "Heathrow Airport, 1981. We'll be watching your flight take off," he added, nodding towards Nyssa and Adric. Visiting a busy airport should be quite an experience for both of them . . . He only hoped Adric's curiosity wouldn't get the better of him.

"Actually," Tegan said, remembering the decision she had made while she and the Doctor were prisoners in Gark's territory, "I'd like to stay with you for a while."

The Doctor looked at her, surprised to hear her say those words after the amount of time she had spent nagging him to get her back to Heathrow. Still, if she wanted to stay in the TARDIS a little longer, that was her business; besides, the airport would still be there if she ever changed her mind again. Then, with nothing else to do on Kylon, he and his companions took their leave of Kerez, before heading back to the TARDIS and more adventures.


End file.
